#92 - Innovative bottle caps, synthetic trees, and a State of California update
Water Water Everywhere...
Hey Readers,
We have a lot of innovations and news this week, so stay the course for all the interesting stuff.
Reusable Bottle with UV & RO in the bottle cap!
Innovation does not necessarily mean building something new, but finding new ways to do something better. This innovation is very much in that same vein. We’ve seen reusable bottles with built-in activated carbon filters as well as bottles fitted with UV lights to kill any germs, now this innovator has put them both together in the bottle cap of his new innovation.
Not stopping there he goes on to say that not only will the insulated bottle keep your purified water hot or cold, as needed, but in this pandemic world, the bottle itself can serve as a sterilization chamber for your phone, keys etc. because it has the UV disinfection medium. Do check out his Kickstarter campaign at this link.
Today, the most common method for removing naturally occurring iron from water is oxidation with oxygen or other agents, i.e., potassium, chlorine and ozone. A Russian-Belorussian research team has come up with a new method to remove iron from groundwater that they say is not as energy intensive or time consuming. They used refractory chamotte as the main component of filter filler. Chamotte, is a raw material for making ceramics and has a high percentage of silica and alumina. It is normally available as a powder or chippings.
Based on an approach called solution combustion synthesis (SCS), where by mixing certain compounds in with the water, it causes the materials to combust via the chemical reaction with the water and the exothermic heat generated fuels the deironing part of the operation. The whole combustion synthesis process including heating, reaction, and cooling down takes from several seconds to 10 min, depending on reacting system. Now why there is excessive iron in the water is a different matter altogether.
NOx derivatives for Textile wastewater degradation
We’ve said it plenty of times before, wastewater from textile manufacturing is highly toxic and has plenty of non-biodegradable crap in it. Since the entire industry has been coming under fire, there have been a bunch of solutions to this issue. This latest solution out of Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in South Korea, is to use radicalized NO3 / NOx to degrade the textile wastewater at an efficiency five-to-seven-fold higher as compared to those provided by conventional radicals (•OH/•OOH/O2•).
If it looks like a lot of science, that is because it is. Without oversimplifying, electrically charged molecules or ions of these compounds can attract, attach and remove toxin compound ions in a water body under the presence of a catalyst. The older method was not nearly as efficient as to make it cost competitive (hence the lack of adoption by the textile industry). Now these fine folks have developed a catalyst (NO3--functionalized manganese oxide) that is ~30 % cheaper than a traditional commercial catalyst (iron salt) and can be mass-produced. Also, the catalyst can be reused ten times or more, in contrast to a traditional catalyst that only guarantees one-time utilization. So this method is roughly 13 times as efficient - Eureka!
Synthetic trees to tap into untapped groundwater
As per the UN about 2.2 billion people lack reliable access to clean drinking water, and yet in some places, water may be just a few meters below their feet. So in an attempt to give them access to this water, a research team at Virginia Tech is building synthetic trees to draw this water out using capillary action. Their benchtop prototype has 19 small plastic tubes serve as this tree’s “trunk.” Each tube carries water up from a container to a ceramic “leaf” that’s a few inches in diameter. Just like a real leaf, this ceramic disk has many tiny pores.
Evaporation from those pores creates the suction that helps pull water up the tubes. The team also sprayed a coating of graphite on to the leaf, which darkens the leaf’s surface to boost how much it heats up in sunlight or under a bright lamp. That boosted evaporation, and water suction. Finally, the team added a cooling pad to chill the part of the box that holds the tree. Water vapor condenses there to create pure water.
New way to remove lead contamination from water
Engineers at MIT have developed a new approach to removing lead or other heavy-metal contaminants from water, in a process that they say is far more energy-efficient than any other currently used system. The new approach uses a process called shock electrodialysis, in which an electric field is used to produce a shockwave inside an electrically charged porous material carrying the contaminated water. The shock wave propagates from one side to the other as the voltage increases, leaving behind a zone where the metal ions are depleted, and separating the feed stream into a brine and a fresh stream. The process results in a 95 percent reduction of lead from the outgoing fresh stream.
On the flip-side, the process still has its limitations, as it has only been demonstrated at small laboratory scale and at quite slow flow rates. Scaling up the process to make it practical for in-home use will require further research, and larger-scale industrial uses will take even longer. But it could be practical within a few years for some home-based systems.
Using pressure differences to desalinate water without external energy
Scientists in United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) have invented an innovative system that dramatically reduces energy consumption during the desalination process. Rather than thermal and reverse osmosis desalination which uses a lot of energy, they propose doing desalination by using a combination of high and low pressures.
In this patented solution, saline water is first pushed at high pressure through a pipeline with the venturi device, its pressure is reduced to allow for evaporation with no or minimum heating. The water is then turned into steam by containing it at very low pressure. After re-condensation, the water is fully desalinated.
In Other News
Getting on to the news;
First is a bumper crop on California and the various water wrangles there.
Marin County Municipal Water District in CA is exploring leasing or purchasing desalination plants to deal with the ongoing drought, but now face competition from a geographically distant but equally dry place - Saudi Arabia. The Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is on the hunt for a desalination plant for his $500 billion mega-city Neom, which is currently under construction.
News outlet Mother Jones, reports that in the San Joaquin valley, in CA, the drought is further exacerbated by the fact that the bulk of the water is used in agriculture. Specifically, the Nut growers in the region are consuming all the water and as such the aquifers and wells for human consumption are running dry.
Not done with just having a drought, here is a Long read about how in the most vulnerable parts of California, the little water available is contaminated with cancer causing industrial pollutants.
Though not all bad news, counties in Southern California have partnered on a historic drought preparedness agreement. Called the Santa Ana River Conservation and Conjunctive Use Program (SARCCUP), it is a $150 million, first-of-its-kind regional groundwater banking program that will use up to 137,000 acre-feet of storage in six groundwater basins and restore multiple habitats.
Another initiative looking to the water circular economy is the Rewaise project out of Europe. Apart from the lofty goals of education and changing mindsets, the project aims to;
reduce freshwater consumption by over 30% with available alternative water sources,
achieve a zero-carbon water cycle service and generating value from water nutrients and materials
Demonstrate innovative recovery of raw materials, minerals from water desalination and nutrients
We have written in the past about the particular plight of the Pacific Islands, with small freshwater reserves that are rapidly depleting or getting contaminated by seawater due to climate change. In a rare burst of good news, researchers from SUNY, NY, used drones to find freshwater in the sea near Rapa Nui or Easter Island. Due to a quirk of geology, rainwater immediately sinks down through the porous bedrock, where it feeds an underground aquifer, that freshwater emerges at spots on the coastline known as coastal seeps.
That is it for this week folks,
‘Til next Friday, Peace