PIO scientist discovers material to help ‘drink from sea’

WASHINGTON: Researchers, led by an Indian-origin scientist, have discovered an energy efficient material for removing salt from seawater to yield drinkable water.
The material, a nanometre-thick sheet of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) riddled with tiny holes called nanopores, is specially designed to let high volumes of water through but keep salt and other contaminates out, a process called desalination.MoS2 showed the greatest efficiency, filtering through up to 70% more water than graphene membranes.
“If we could find a lowcost, efficient way to purify sea water, we would be making good strides in solving water crisis,” said study leader Narayana Aluru, professor at University of Illinois.
Most desalination technologies rely on reverse osmosis to push seawater through a thin plastic membrane to make fresh water. They are very good at filtering out salt, but yield only a trickle of fresh water.
Using the Blue Waters supercomputer the researchers found that a single-layer sheets of MoS2 have the advantages of thinness, requiring much less energy, which in turn dramatically reduces operating costs.
“Molybdenum in the centre attracts water, then the sulphur on the other side pushes it away, so we have much higher rate of water going through the pore,” said Mohammad Heiranian, first author of the study.