Nano Materials

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have demonstrated that water near a water-repelling surface has significantly less capability to dissolve salts

Surface pollution is a common problem in everyday life, from dirty clothes to shellfish that grow on ship hulls. Since the initial step of pollution starts from adhesion of a pollutant onto a surface, designing antipollution surfaces require an in-depth understanding of surface adhesion at the nanoscale. However, scientific understanding of surface adhesion is still very limited.

A water filter which absorbs anything from copper and fluoride to bacteria, viruses and pesticides has won a prestigious African innovation prize

Its inventor, Tanzanian chemical engineer Askwar Hilonga, uses nanotechnology and sand to clean water.

He told the BBC his invention should help the 70% of households in Tanzania that do not have clean drinking water.

GE launches new SWSR - SeaWater Sulfate Reducing Membrane

Exclusively for the Oil and Gas industry, the SWSR is a Nanofiltration membrane element portfolio developed for seawater sulfate removal. It is built on GE's robust DK membrane platform, which has been used for over 30 years in some of the most challenging applications. The SWSR NF membrane features a 300 Dalton Molecular Weight cut-off and is an absolute barrier for any suspended matter including particles, colloidal silica, and bacterial matters.

A technology developed in the IIT Madras lab

Affordable clean water is a crucial aspect of development. Yet, it finds less than adequate attention in the overall scheme of things, whether research, technology or policy.

New types of membrane adsorbers remove unwanted particles from water and also, at the same time, dissolved substances such as the hormonally active bis-phenol A or toxic lead 

To do this, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB imbed selective adsorber particles in filtration membranes.It was not until January 2015 that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) lowered the threshold value for bisphenol A in packaging.

Inactivation of Foodborne Microorganisms Using Engineered Water Nanostructures (EWNS) called electrosraying

Foodborne diseases caused by the consumption of food contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms or their toxins have very serious economic and public health consequences. Here, we explored the effectiveness of a recently developed intervention method for inactivation of microorganisms on fresh produce, and food production surfaces.

The Water Research Initiative of the Institute for Molecular Engineering has added a sixth research project to the original five that received funding last year

The six projects are for research on new materials and methods to make clean water more accessible and less expensive. These seed projects involve physicists, chemists, geoscientists, environmentalists and molecular engineers working in collaborations involving scientists at the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.