'Whiskey Is For Drinking,

water is for fighting,

is one of the many quotes which show just how precious this liquid is, a lack of fresh, potable water is a looming crisis as the human population grows, indeed, the UN suggests that “water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies and the World in the XXIst century.” which may seem strange as so much of our planet is covered by it, the problem is removing salt from it to make water drinkable and as a resource to grow food, normally a process called osmosis is used, water is past through a membrane which allows water molecules through but not salt molecules, an expensive and wasteful way to produce water, the stumbling block has been the membrane that the pure water has to pass through, you may not think the situation is serious, but these figures for the 2014 market for reverse osmosis (RO) membranes and system components may change your mind, the market is expected to reach nearly $5.4 billion by year end, and is predicted to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5% to reach $8.8 billion by 2019, but there is some good news on the horizon, now a new membrane has been found, 

Graphene, a new material discovered in the past decade, has attracted enormous attention for a variety of applications ranging from quantum computing and solar cells to smart phone screens and condoms, and garnered its discoverers a Nobel Prize in 2010, consisting of just a single layer of carbon atoms, it is as thin as a material can be while also maintaining remarkable strength, 150x that of steel and flexibility, all of which make it an excellent candidate as a desalination membrane, new work reported this month has now shown that graphene is punctured by nanoscale holes, those that can admit water while excluding salt ions and is indeed an efficient means of filtering seawater, in fact, the graphene nanopore film was able to achieve nearly 100% salt exclusion while also maintaining a higher rate of water passage than comparable technologies, is this the answer to the worlds water shortage? I do not know but it is a step in the right direction, enough seriousness for today, the next post will be a little more light hearted!