Graphene water filters

About 10 years ago, the entire scientific community suddenly spoke of a novelty that is potentially capable of solving many problems that have not yet been solved. Futuristic material, which was called graphene, was predicted a fantastic future and it seems to have already come.

The Australian state association of scientists CSIRO in 2016 announced the creation of a graphene filter capable of purifying water of any impurities, salts and bacteria. Miracles? By no means!

CSIRO announced the creation of the graphene filter in 2016, photo © csiro

Graphene itself is a crystal lattice of carbon atoms with a thickness of just one atom. In fact, this is one side of graphite, "cut off" from the whole crystal. Today it is the world's thinnest material and yet flexible, extensible, superconducting, self-healing, and its strength is 200 times stronger than the steel!

For a long time, the only mechanism for its obtaining was the manual removal of graphite layers under laboratory conditions. Of course, it is not necessary to talk about the industrial scale of such production. Later, in view of the unique properties of this material, more and more scientists join the research of a simpler method of obtaining graphene.

Graphene is the world's thinnest material today, фото © csiro

Already in 2017 in Kansas proposed to blow up a certain gas mixture in a closed chamber, after which graphene would be collected. But as mentioned above, scientists from Australia went further and received the finest graphene membranes from soybean oil - easy, quickly and without any pyrotechnics. It was tested in the beginning of 2018 as a water filter.

The results exceeded all expectations! Sydney Bay was chosen as a place for experiment, the water was taken from there. It was passed through an ordinary cheap membrane filter with previously installed graphene membrane. According to the scientists, just one "sweep" was enough to make the dirty, salted water was suitable for drinking. Australians demonstrated immediately confidence in the results of their research and drank this water.

Membrane filter with graphene membrane, photo © csiro

The potential of the invention is enormous. First, the new material does not care how contaminated the liquid is - it cleans it 100%. Secondly, this method of cleaning does not require additional material costs, since all that is needed for filtration is, in fact, the filter itself. It serves much longer than any of the existing ones, and the new production technology allows installing such membranes both in houses and large-scale production.

The use of graphene as a water filter is a great idea, but this is just one of the possible way to use it. Today, this substance can be used in the problem of global warming, if it is used as a CO2 filter in industrial plants, in cars and other systems that pollute the atmosphere.

The potential of graphene is enormous, photo WEB

Physicians also plan to make bone tissue and even nerves from it . It can become indispensable in modern diagnosis of diseases, due to its extreme sensitivity. Already today, in China, a sensor is created, capable of recognizing one cancer cell from thousands, and scientists promise that soon it will be able not only to find it, but also to destroy it.

Australians called their novelty - GraphAir. We can't say is it the beginning of the graphene revolution, because large-scale trials are scheduled only for 2019. But one thing can be said with certain: a breakthrough will be made in solving many problems if the experiment justifies itself.

Victoria Romanova, Russia, Moscow

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