[TechSpot] Breakthrough water filter eliminates forever chemicals using modified graphene oxide

[Space Lynx]

Breakthrough water filter eliminates forever chemicals using modified graphene oxide

Researchers at Monash University have introduced a new water filtration technology that could shift the fight against PFAS – chemicals known for their environmental persistence and health...

www.techspot.com

The Monash team developed a graphene oxide membrane derived from graphite and enhanced it with beta-cyclodextrin, a ring-shaped sugar molecule. The pairing is intentional as beta-cyclodextrin can trap chemical compounds inside its ring-like structure, acting as a molecular cage. The researchers created a highly selective network of nanoscale channels by integrating beta-cyclodextrin into the graphene oxide membrane. These channels act as energy barriers, blocking PFAS molecules – including the elusive short-chain types – while allowing water to flow through efficiently.

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Let's hope one of the major companies like Pur or Brita scale production of something like this up ASAP. I think I speak for everyone when I say the amount of PFAS in all of our blood is a bit alarming.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

Been seeing this around all week. Neat stuff.

 

[Shihab]

The press release makes me think this tech is more about efficiency(?) and cost-effectiveness(?), than it is a solution to a thus far unsolved problem. The text leads one to think that this filter is physically comparable to nanofilters, which may be ineffective for tiny chemicals indeed. But reverse osmosis filters are not. If this tech is indeed uses "nanoscale channels," then the sub-nanonmeter RO is probably more effective here, albeit at higher operational costs.

Someone do read the actual paper and see if there is a comparison. I'm too lazy to do so right now.

 

[Jtuck9]

I saw this on our local news recently:

Somerset entrepreneur wins environmental innovation award

Jane Pearce has designed a product to remove phosphates from water for reuse as fertiliser.

www.bbc.co.uk

Wonder if something like this could help reduce things like problematic amounts of sargassum?

 

[Space Lynx]

The press release makes me think this tech is more about efficiency(?) and cost-effectiveness(?), than it is a solution to a thus far unsolved problem. The text leads one to think that this filter is physically comparable to nanofilters, which may be ineffective for tiny chemicals indeed. But reverse osmosis filters are not. If this tech is indeed uses "nanoscale channels," then the sub-nanonmeter RO is probably more effective here, albeit at higher operational costs.

Someone do read the actual paper and see if there is a comparison. I'm too lazy to do so right now.

I'm too lazy to read the actual paper as well, but the article itself was fascinating is the only reason I wanted to share here.

 

[9087125]

Even if this turns out to be true, it does absolutely nothing for nano plastics that literally diffuse through your skin from the omni plastics in our lives or the plastics and PFAs that are airborne, that is why they are found all over the entire globe. If we cross that point of going from contaminants to pollution to proven they are causing diseases, thats the scary thing, what do we do to mitigate it? what is it all doing to the body in the long-term?
On top of this, there are many dissolved contaminates in water like heavy metals from waste and corroding pipes, salts, excessive amounts of minerals that serve no use for nutrition, chlorination by-products, flocculant/coagulant by-products, and pharmaceuticals, pesticides/fertilizers that are becoming more of a problem as they find their way into drinking water via ground and air. The authorities don't care because there isn't any real scientific studies that directly show that they cause health issues and diseases, and that fact is because said studies would be very very expensive and span decades. Reverse osmosis or water distillation are the only viable options for safe dinking water. I personally drink distilled as RO is too much filter replacement for me personally.

Mechanical filtration cannot remove chemicals as they are dissolved and the ions are bonded to the water molecules with very high force strength. And any conventional filter that removes one or two contaminates via adsorption wont be able to remove all of them due to the different chemistry going on with each. In RO that force is overcome by the high pressures themselves and so it isnt mechanical filtration or adsorption.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Key questions:
How much does it cost?
Is it recyclable?
How quickly does the filter become saturated and need to be replaced, or in other words, will we need new landfills, especially because of too many of these filters?