{"id":447048,"date":"2011-06-24T11:34:29","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T11:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/24\/super-sand-to-help-clean-water\/"},"modified":"2011-06-24T11:34:29","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T11:34:29","slug":"super-sand-to-help-clean-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/24\/super-sand-to-help-clean-water\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Super sand’ to help clean water"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 June 2011<\/span> Last updated at<\/span> 07:34 ET<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Contaminated water can be cleaned much more effectively using a novel, cheap material, say researchers.<\/p>\n

Dubbed “super sand”, it could become a low-cost way to purify water in the developing world.<\/p>\n

The technology involves coating grains of sand in oxide of a widely available material called graphite – commonly used as lead in pencils.<\/p>\n

The team describes the work in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.<\/p>\n

In many countries around the world, access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities is still limited.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization states that “just 60% of the population in Sub-Saharan African and 50% of the population in Oceania [islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean] use improved sources of drinking-water.”<\/p>\n

The graphite-coated sand grains might be a solution – especially as people have already used sand to purify water since ancient times.<\/p>\n

Coating the sand<\/span><\/p>\n

But with ordinary sand, filtering techniques can be tricky.<\/p>\n

Continue reading the main story<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cStart Quote<\/span><\/h2>\n
\n

Given that this can be synthesized using room temperature processes and also from cheap graphite sources, it is likely to be cost-efficient\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

End Quote<\/span> Mainak Majumder<\/span> Monash University, Australia<\/span><\/div>\n

Dr Wei Gao from Rice university in Texas, US, told BBC News that regular coarse sand was a lot less effective than fine sand when water was contaminated with pathogens, organic contaminants and heavy metal ions.<\/p>\n

While fine sand is slightly better, water drains through it very slowly.<\/p>\n

“Our product combines coarse sand with functional carbon material that could offer higher retention for those pollutants, and at the same time gives good throughput,” explained Dr Gao.<\/p>\n

She said that the technique the team has developed to make the sand involves dispersing graphite oxide into water and mixing it with regular sand.<\/p>\n

“We then heat the whole mixture up to 105C for a couple of hours to evaporate the water, and use the final product – ‘coated sand’ – to purify polluted water.”<\/p>\n

Cost-efficient<\/span><\/p>\n

The lead scientist of the study, Professor Pulickel Ajayan, said it was possible to modify the graphite oxide in order to make it more selective and sensitive to certain pollutants – such as organic contaminants or specific metals in dirty water.<\/p>\n

Another team member, Dr Mainak Majumder from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, said it had another advantage – it was cheap.<\/p>\n

“This material demonstrates comparable performance to some commercially available activated carbon materials,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But given that this can be synthesized using room temperature processes and also from cheap graphite sources, it is likely to be cost-efficient.”<\/p>\n

He pointed out that in Australia many mining companies extract graphite and they produce a lot of graphite-rich waste.<\/p>\n

“This waste can be harnessed for water purification,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

More:
\n‘Super sand’ to help clean water<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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