#202 - Waxworms, Comuna Ocho, Catalonia, Lead Detection, IWVC, & more...
Water Water Everywhere...
Hey Readers,
Let’s get into the innovations & news from the world of water this week.
Innovations Roundup
Carbon Capture + Atmospheric Water generation - Part Deux
Its seems like just a few weeks ago we were talking about Direct Air Capture of carbon particles with atmospheric water generation as a side benefit. Ohh right… we were! Well this week too we have another innovator with a similar idea, similar but different in that theirs is a new carbon capture technology, called Isothermal Water Vapor and CO2 Capture (IWVC). This system simultaneously captures carbon dioxide and water from the air using a two-stage vacuum swing process. First, the device attracts and binds water vapor and carbon dioxide. Then it condenses the water out and compresses the carbon dioxide for transport, storage, or use to make fuel or other products.
The key difference between this solution and others? - Existing DAC approaches consume massive quantities of water while their system produces water. The Los Angeles based startup say that their demonstration project can capture 1,000 liters (264 gallons) of water and 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of carbon dioxide per day. Woof!
Ultra-sensitive lead detection
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an ultra-sensitive sensor made with graphene that can detect lead ions in water at record low concentrations — one million times more sensitive than previous sensing technologies. Why, you ask? - Traditional techniques for detecting lead with high accuracy and sensitivity often rely on expensive instruments, which limits widespread use. Meanwhile, home kits, while more accessible, tend to be unreliable and exhibit a relatively poor limit of detection, typically a whole million times worse than this new one.
The device consists of a single layer of graphene mounted on a silicon wafer. The graphene, while highly conductive was made more sensitive to conductive ions by attaching a linker molecule to its surface. This linker serves as the anchor for an ion receptor i.e., the lead ions. In this application, the researchers used an aptamer, which is a short, single strand of DNA or RNA, as the ion receptor/ linker. These receptor molecules are known to be highly selective toward specific ions, so the researchers further enhanced the receptor’s binding affinity for lead ions by tailoring its DNA or RNA sequence to only be triggered upon binding to lead ions. While still very much a proof-of-concept solution, the research team is working to develop methods of commercialization this solution.
News Roundup
Barcelona and the Catalonia region of Spain is in a historic drought, where dwindling reserves have fallen to 15.8% of normal levels, with the Spanish environment minister says countries need to realise it is a resource that can no longer be taken for granted.
Things aren’t any better in Afghanistan, with drought having deprived 21 million Afghans, almost half of Afghanistan's population, of access to potable water.
A research study by researchers in Germany and the Netherlands have found that with increasing number of river basins having high levels of contamination, Five billion people could be without clean drinking water by 2050.
Also, as per the good people at the NY Times - The East Coast Is Sinking into the sea, slowly but surely.
It’s not all bad news, with residents not waiting on governments and taking matters into their own hands in Medellin, Columbia - when they found themselves being overlooked by government organizations, they banded together to create their climate change action plan. Residents in the hillside neighborhood of Comuna Ocho have designed an emergency action plan, set up a water filtration system, and worked to educate residents about the potential effects of climate change.
A Nevada jury has awarded about $130 million in damages in a lawsuit filed by five people who suffered liver damage after drinking bottled water marketed by a Las Vegas-based company before the product was recalled from store shelves in 2021.
Finally for this week, we wanted to share from a fellow substack writer who talks about regenerative climate care. Ali is a wonderfully positive writer (which we could use more of), and in his ’Five Drops of Insight’ he talks about the possible ways to revive water sources from wetlands restoration to waxworms as plastic recyclers.
‘Til next week
Peace!