#199 - Davos, Moon water, Arsenic, $2 filters, Nanopowders, DeSal + DAC & more...
Water Water Everywhere...
Hey Readers,
This week we have another dose of innovations and news from the world of water. We also have a question for you right at the end of this piece, so please let us know if it is of interest to you? Thanks!
Innovations Roundup
Desalination with Carbon Capture
Both Carbon capture and desalination are solutions that are highly energy intensive with a high chemical requirement or waste production. As such any method to mitigate wastage from both processes will have advantages. Enter a California & New Zealand based startup that is piloting a project that combines carbon capture tech with seawater desalination.
In their system, seawater will first flow to a desalination facility and there, the separated out clean water will be supplied out. The residual brine with its high salt and mineral content will be then sent for use in their direct air capture (DAC) system. They are extracting salt from the brine, using it to make a liquid sorbent that reacts with carbon dioxide sucked in from the air, converting it into mineralised carbonates that can be stored in a non-polluting format. As mentioned, this is just a pilot plant with a 500-ton capacity, so hopefully they are successful enough to scale this to full production size.
Sunlight + nanopowder to clean water
Researchers at Kerala University in India have developed a nanopowder with water purification capability that uses only sunlight to power itself. Using a concept they call ‘green chemistry’ they synthesised a nanomaterial with nanopores large enough to let clean water through but not contaminants. They use semiconductive compound Indium Sulphide in nanopowder form, and tested it on complex contaminants.
They add the nanopowder to the contaminated water and with exposure to 2-3 hours of sunlight, the contaminants are absorbed by the nanomaterial. They could achieve greater than 92% efficiency while removing Sulforhodamine B or textile dye molecules. The researchers have also developed a process to remove the absorbed pollutant from the nanomaterial and reuse it for water purification. They do caution that repeated use could retard the powder’s efficiency at purification.
Portable water filter for under $2
The joint research team from China and the United States have built a portable water purification device that is reusable and would cost only US$1.7 to make. The easy-to-use device’s filter is made from tiny cellulose fibres and operates through a simple mechanism - dirty water is pushed through the attached filter with a plastic syringe, much like an injection. The system purifies water seven times faster than existing commercial ultrafiltration membranes and maintains nearly 100 per cent particle removal efficiency after 30 uses, according to the researchers.
The filter is in fact a hydrogel film with a densely stacked and entangled cellulose nanofiber network made from wood powder, which has the same chemical components as ordinary paper. The thin film can effectively filter ultrafine particles larger than 10 nanometres. According to the researchers, the syringe system converts muddy water, river water, snow melt and water contaminated with nanoplastics into clean water.
In the News
Bangladesh is already badly hit by climate change-related natural disasters, but now they have another problem to contend with. Around 49% of the country’s drinking well water - which almost everyone drinks - has unsafe limits of carcinogenic arsenic.
Also in the news this week is a really well-written article from TIME magazine on how water is rapidly becoming the new Oil in the Gulf. One snippet - Saudi Arabia, for example, which accounts for over 60% of the GCC population, is now the third highest per capita water consumer in the world, behind only the U.S. and Canada.
Not to fear, the Canadians are looking for innovators to help purify the water on the Moon. The intent being that by developing new technologies to purify Moon water for human deep-space missions, they will also help advance water purification processes here on Earth.
The World Bank has quietly been going about doing their thing to make the world a better place;
They’ve approved a program to provide better access to water and sewerage services to around 2 million people in Tamil Nadu, India.
They have also approved another project that will improve water quality and wastewater treatment for over half a million residents in southern Vietnam.
And lastly for this week we couldn’t not talk about the big event - World Economic Forum in Davos. UpLink, a World Economic Forum initiative, ran a “Water Investment Series”, for investors who are looking at water technologies to invest in. They showcased greywater solutions, rainwater harvesting solutions, wastewater treatment, water infrastructure analytics, artificial intelligence as well as digital twin solutions.
Check out these innovators and let us know if you want us to dive deeper into their solutions in an upcoming edition of the newsletter.
That is it for us this Friday so until next week,
Peace!