Low cost and high speed nanotechnology water filter for developing world

Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by Allen Smith in Technology

US researchers say they have developed a high-speed water filter that uses nanotechnology and comes at low. The new water filter they say could well be a perfect water-filtering solution for the developing world.

Researchers at Stanford University have used plain cotton cloth dipped in a solution of silver nanowires as well as carbon nanotubes to make a filter that actually kills than filters the harmful micro organisms.

Most water filters filter or trap the microbes but the new filter which is a charged cloth (ions of silver and carbon) allows the micro organsims through, but they will not be virulent enough to cause health threat as the filter had killed them before letting them pass through with the water.

The electrical field that is present in the high-conduction nano-coated (silver and carbon) cotton generates as much as 20 volts of electric field that can kill all water-borne microbes. Under lab conditions, the filter had killed more than 98 percent of E. coli bacteria. The filter was made 2.5-inch thickness by taking several layers of fabric.

Yi Cui, Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, says that the new treatment to make the water safe and potable can be used in remote places where people have no access to chlorine or other modes of water treatment. Yi says that the water filtering rate can also be increased by having large-sized pores.

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