Miracle electronics material could help create clean water

A material said to be around 1 million times thinner than paper could one day help us create clean water.

Graphene, a layer of graphite one atom thick, has been hailed as a miracle material with potential uses in electronics and energy generation, but researchers at Monash University and the University of Kentucky have found a way it can be used as a hyper-efficient water filter.

Their research was recently published in the science journal, Nature Communications.

Researcher Mainak Majumder from Monash University told Mashable Australia he has been working with graphene for almost seven years. As well as the water filter project, the team have also developed "super sand," a product containing graphene that could help mop up oil spills, as well as investigating the use of the material in super capacitors for energy storage.

Graphene was already known to be a highly-effective water filter, but the challenge was finding a method to produce it commercially, he explained. Labs around the world have been working on the problem.

To create filters on a larger and rapider scale, Majumder's team developed an industrial technique that can produce an even film from graphene, which water can be filtered through.

"We have a form of graphene oxide which we can spread, almost with something like a butter knife," he said. "It is not only scalable, but it gives quite a unique [uniform] microstructure that people have never demonstrated before."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

One advantage it has over existing water filters is its efficiency at filtering out chemicals and bacteria at high speed, Majumder claimed. "The amount of water you can pass through ... is remarkably high, at the same time as sieving the molecules," he said. "The amount of pure water it can produce is almost eight to nine times better than a commercial [filter]."

The graphene can remove anything bigger than one nanometre, which is 100,000 times smaller than a human hair. "It can completely filter anything larger than one nanometre, and can also filter out reasonable amounts of things like ... sodium chloride," he added.

In addition, the graphene filter won't deteriorate as rapidly as other water filters, Majumder suggested. Graphene is derived from carbon, which is very stable and will not so easily corrode in harsh conditions.

Along with their industry partner Ionic Industries, the scientists are now raising money to take the filter to a commercial scale.

Next up, Majumder plans to investigate the use of graphene to improve the performance of batteries, but its potential is immense. "[Graphene] membranes could be used for different sorts of applications," he said. "I could go to the water industry, I could go to the food industry ... I could look at energy generation."

In Majumder's opinion, using graphene in scientific and industrial projects is only going to become easier. Up until now, it has sometimes been hard to consistently obtain. "Graphene is derived from graphite, which is a pretty cheap material," he said. "A lot of companies nowadays are actually selling graphene oxide in tonnage quantities.

"In two to three years, you'll find that getting hold of this material will not be a major problem."

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