Removing salt from seawater to make it safe to drink means overcoming a number of scientific challenges, including making the most of the membrane. which will be used for the detoxification process – and a new study of these organs promises that all the work will be cheaper and more accessible in the future.
Scientists have discovered a way to make the organs 30–40 percent more efficient in terms of the energy needed to filter water. The key to their approach lies in the density of the organs at the nanoscale level.
In a new study, the team finds out how maintaining organ density is more important than diseases in the organs themselves. This can improve the water purification process known as reverse osmosis, where minerals are captured and removed by a ball through the use of pressure.
Nanoscale 3D membrane mapping highlighted the importance of constant density. (State of Enrique Gomez / Penn)
“Reverse osmosis membranes are widely used to purify water, but there are many we don’t know about,” said environmental engineer Manish Kumar of the University of Texas at Austin.
“We couldn’t say for sure how water passes through, so all the improvements in the last 40 years have been done in the dark.”
To get a clearer view of these organs, Kumar and his colleagues used a multimodal electron microscopy method – combining chemical composition analysis with nanoscale 3D mapping – to model how effectively water could be purified.
The research was prompted by the observation that thick organs were often better at detoxification, which is inconvenient considering there is more material to push the water through.
What the modeling showed was that inconsistencies and ‘dead zones’ played a larger role in the thick membrane.
Get member densities evenly distributed, and more water can be purified with less energy, the researchers suggest – saving money for large corporations and small-scale consumers, and enabling greater access to technology.
“You can see how some places are bigger or more dense in coffee grounds right with your eye,” says chemical engineer Enrique Gomez, of Pennsylvania State University.
“In a filtration membrane, it looks even, but it doesn’t have the nanoscale, and how you control that large dispersion is very important for water filtration performance.”
Freshwater production is essential not only for public health, but also for use in agriculture and energy production. Billions of waters are cleaned each year, so 30-40 percent efficiency improvements could make a big difference.
The ability to map organs at such a small resolution – less than half the diameter of DNA strands in this case – means that scientists now have a much better understanding of what they are doing. better membrane on reverse osmosis. That should inform future research on further improving efficiency.
There are several ways to purify salt water for use for other purposes, but the membrane approach is already one of the most effective. Researchers are now looking at ways in which they can continue to develop and apply to specific practices.
“Freshwater management is becoming a critical challenge worldwide,” Gomez said. “Scarcity, drought – with growing weather patterns, this problem is expected to become even more significant.”
“It is extremely important that clean water is available, especially in low-resource areas.”
The research was published in Science.