Browse Topic: Water quality
Using waste to purify water may sound counterintuitive. But at TU Wien, this is exactly what has now been achieved: a special nanostructure has been developed to filter a widespread class of harmful dyes from water. A crucial component is a material that is considered waste: used cellulose, for example, in the form of cleaning cloths or paper cups. The cellulose is utilized to coat a fine nanofabric to create an efficient filter for polluted water.
Clean, safe water is vital for human health and well-being. It also plays a critical role in our food security, supports high-tech industries, and enables sustainable urbanization. However, detecting contamination quickly and accurately remains a major challenge in many parts of the world. A groundbreaking new device developed by researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has the potential to significantly advance water quality monitoring and management.
Water scarcity has been referred to as the silent existential crisis of our time. Our planet has very little fresh water — and is running out of it quickly. Yet no one seems to be talking about it.
Swimming robots play a crucial role in mapping pollution, studying aquatic ecosystems, and monitoring water quality in sensitive areas such as coral reefs or lake shores. However, many devices rely on noisy propellers, which can disturb or harm wildlife. The natural clutter in these environments — including plants, animals, and debris — also poses a challenge to robotic swimmers.
With the recent rise in electric vehicles and mobile devices, managing spent batteries has become a critical global challenge. By 2040, the number of decommissioned electric vehicles is expected to exceed 40 million, leading to a sharp increase in waste batteries. Developing advanced recycling technologies has thus become an urgent priority, as the metals in batteries pose a significant risk of soil and water contamination.
Inspired by a small and slow snail, scientists have developed a robot prototype that may one day scoop up microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas, and lakes. The robot’s design is based on the Hawaiian apple snail (Pomacea canaliculate), a common aquarium snail that uses the undulating motion of its foot to drive water surface flow and suck in floating food particles.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an ultra-sensitive sensor made with graphene that can detect extraordinarily low concentrations of lead ions in water. The device achieves a record limit of detection of lead down to the femtomolar range, which is one million times more sensitive than previous sensing technologies.
Curtiss-Wright Corporation Davidson, NC info@curtisswright.com
Tracking the spread of COVID-19 through communities provided essential data for public-health officials and individuals to make informed decisions during the pandemic. One method that proved useful was collecting, concentrating, and testing municipal wastewater for the presence of the virus that caused the illness. As this testing ramped up, a technology developed for NASA to identify pathogens inside spacecraft saved time and produced dependable results on Earth.
NASA Kennedy Space Center has developed a water remediation treatment system that utilizes an affordable media that is highly selective for ammonia, allowing large concentrations of ammonia in wastewater to be reduced to levels less than 1 ppm. Following treatment, the media is regenerated for reuse in the system and ammonia is captured as a by-product.
A commonplace chemical used in water treatment facilities has been repurposed for large-scale energy storage in a new battery design by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The design provides a pathway to a safe, economical, water-based, flow battery made with Earth-abundant materials. It provides another pathway in the quest to incorporate intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar energy into the nation’s electric grid.
Inspired by a small and slow snail, scientists have developed a robot prototype that may one day scoop up microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas, and lakes.
Recent experiments by a team from the West Virginia University focused on how a weightless microgravity environment affects 3D printing using titania foam, a material with potential applications ranging from UV blocking to water purification. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces published their findings.
Billions of people around the world lack access to clean, drinkable water. A research team led by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin has developed a new water filtration system using locally sourced materials for members of the Navajo Nation in the Southwest.
Arsenic and ammonia in ground and surface waters pose significant health risks globally, especially for remote areas where access to safe drinking water is a concern for U.S. military personnel. Current removal materials and methods lack contaminant specificity. This study developed adsorptive resins and membranes specifically targeting arsenate and ammonia removal using molecularly imprinted acrylate polymers supported on graphitic carbon nitride. These materials showed comparable arsenate removal capacity to commercial resins. Higher ammonia removal capacity but lower selectivity was demonstrated by these materials in comparison to commercial resins. This research aims to enhance water treatment materials for ensuring clean drinking water access in remote military locations.
This report describes a preliminary research effort to modify whole effluent toxicity (WET) testing protocols designed for continuous flow discharges for application to episodic and/or ephemeral discharges such as those associated with storm water runoff. The effort was undertaken in response to a Naval Base San Diego industrial stormwater National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit (R9-2013-0064) condition that allows the Navy to assess and propose alternative testing parameters. This research (at the time it was conducted) was done for Naval Base San Diego by environmental toxicologists at the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific (SSC Pacific).
Scientists have created a cybersecurity technology called Shadow Figment that is designed to lure hackers into an artificial world, then stop them from doing damage by feeding them illusory tidbits of success. The aim is to sequester bad actors by captivating them with an attractive, but imaginary world. The technology is aimed at protecting physical targets — infrastructure such as buildings, the electric grid, water and sewage systems, and pipelines.
Lubricant additives have a strong influence on the tribological performance of internal combustion engine components, and it is currently one of the leading research driving forces within lubricant companies. However, the anti-friction and anti-wear additives work forming surface tribofilms may have their performance affected by ethanol or water contamination. As both ethanol and water are polar, they may compete on the surface with the additives, avoiding or delaying the additive tribofilm formation. In this work, the effect of ethanol and water on the performance of 4 different fully formulated SAE 0W-20 engine oils, differing only on the friction modifier (FM) additive technology employed, was investigated. In order to emulate fuel dilutions, three tests conditions were carried out for each engine oil: (i) fresh, (ii) in the presence of ethanol, and (iii) in the presence of ethanol and water. Friction and wear of actual piston ring and liner were evaluated in a reciprocating test designed to emulate actual thermomechanical conditions of both urban and highway car use. Amine and ester FM containing engine oils did not show a significant difference in friction in the fresh condition of the hot-running phase. However, with ethanol and water, amine and ester FM oils provided 30% and 20% friction reduction on the contact, respectively. In its fresh condition, molybdenum type FM-containing oil reduced the CoF (71%) drastically, and even worsening its performance with the ethanol and water dilutions, molybdenum-containing oil still kept a high level of CoF reduction when compared with the baseline oil and the other friction modifiers. The wear of the cylinder liner and piston ring was low, not being affected by the oil dilutions. Those results evidence that somehow the friction modifier performance, nowadays of utmost importance to achieve targets of fuel economy, is affected by the presence of ethanol and water in the lubricant, and the level of influence depends upon temperature and the formulation technology applied.
Army-funded research identified a new chemistry approach that could remove micropollutants from the environment. Micropollutants are biological or chemical contaminants that make their way into ground and surface waters in trace quantities.
The interiors of nonflowering trees, such as pine and ginkgo, contain sapwood lined with straw-like conduits known as xylem that draw water up through a tree’s trunk and branches. Xylem conduits are interconnected via thin membranes that act as natural sieves, filtering out bubbles from water and sap.
Among the many avenues that viruses can use to infect humans, drinking water may pose only a tiny risk for spreading certain viruses like the novel coronavirus. But in cases where there is unauthorized wastewater disposal or other events of inadvertent mixing of wastewater with water sources, the possibility of transmission through drinking water remains unknown.
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
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