Sheila Mae C.

Apusen
BSCE V
ELEECTIVE 4 Special Topics

Water Innovation Technologies:

1.) Direct-Contact Membrane Desalination

If we could tap the vast oceans as a source of drinking water, everyone would
have more than enough. But that means removing the salt, which is inefficient and
costly using existing technology. That's why a new process, developed by New
Jersey Institute of Technology chemical engineering professor Kamalesh Sirkar, has
such dazzling promise. In Sirkar's direct-contact membrane distillation (DCMD)
system, heated seawater flows across a plastic membrane containing a series of
hollow tubes filled with cold distilled water. The DCMD's tubes have tiny pores, which
are designed so that they can be penetrated by the water vapor which collects on
them, but not by salt. The vapor diffuses through the pores and is drawn off, to be
condensed again into liquid water.

2.) Ceramic Water Filters

Clay ceramic filters work in a fashion similar to the desalination technology described
in the previous section. Basically, water flows through clay that contains a lot of
really tiny holes, which are big enough to let water molecules though, but too small
for bacteria, dirt, and other bad stuff. The first such device was developed by a
British potter, Henry Doulton, back in the early 1800s for purifying water drawn from
the Thames, which was so contaminated with raw sewage that cholera and typhoid
were continual dangers.

3.) Herbal Defluoridation

The researchers have developed a filter system that uses a common medicinal herb,
Tridax procumbens, to absorb excess fluoride from drinking water. The plant, which
has also been used to extract toxic heavy metals from water, attracts fluoride ions
when water passes through it at a temperature of about 27 degrees Celsius (80.6
degrees Fahrenheit). The filter potentially could provide an inexpensive, easy-to-use
way of making water safe in places where the supply contains excessive fluoride.
But it also may be used by people in the U.S. and other countries who don't like the
idea of fluoride being added to their water.

4.) Salt as Purification

In a 2012 article in the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development,
they proposed a solar disinfection regimen that first treats the water with a process
called flocculation, in which a small amount of table salt is added to the water to
draw out the clay. While the resulting drinking water has higher levels of salt than
Americans are used to, it's still got less in it than Gatorade.

Source: Kiger, P. J. (2015, August). Innovations in Water Purification. Retrieved from

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/sustainable/10-
innovations-water-purification.htm