Water Shortage Solution

The ideal salt water filter is one that has 100% salt rejection with the largest water flux value. The molecular Layer-by-Layer separation film created by nanotechnology has very high values for these, as seen in the figure.
The ideal salt water filter is one that has 100% salt rejection with the largest water flux value. The molecular Layer-by-Layer separation film created by nanotechnology has very high values for these, as seen in the figure.

 

A Korean research team has successfully developed a technique to change sea water into fresh water using nanotechnology. The method is expected to contribute to solving water shortages around the world.

A research team headed by Prof. Lee Jung-hyun at Korea University announced on Jan. 26 that they have succeeded in developing a technique to manipulate the structure and performance of separation films using a nanotechnology. The nanotechnology can make several layers of thin films by stacking molecules on top of one another and assembling those stacked molecules afterwards.

In particular, separation films manufactured by this technique can remove the same amount of salt as existing methods with an 80 percent better water permeability. So far, it has been difficult to enhance the function and durability of separation films, since the physical and chemical structure of those films are hard to control.

Professor Lee explained, “I think that our research can contribute to increasing local technologies' share of the separation films market for seawater desalination and water treatment in the future.” The research findings were first published online on Jan. 5 by ACS Nano, a monthly scientific journal published by the American Chemical Society.

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