A New, Better Way to Desalinate Water
16th November 2022
A team led by King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) has shown how ultrathin polymer-based ordered membranes can efficiently remove salt from brine and seawater, offering a potential alternative for current desalination systems.
“Water desalination membranes should simultaneously exhibit high water flux and high salt rejection,” says Yu Han, who led the study. Carbon nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, are projected to match these requirements because of their unique surface chemistry and tendency to stack into channels with diameters less than one nanometer. However, the challenges of channel alignment and stacking prevent their large-scale use in membranes.