Sustainable Water Purification

Newly developed phase-engineered and low dimensional materials have opened the door to the design of materials structures that exhibit extremely efficient ionic transport. Recently, a new type of electro-filtration system designed to convert thermal power into purified water from salt water (or other ionic pollutants) has been demonstrated in the lab. The system is based on a bi-phasic nanoplatelette form of the compound MoS2 (Molybdenum disulphide). Specifically engineering a single film of hexagonal MoS2 that transitions into tetragonal MoS2, one of which is hydrophobic and one strongly hydrophilic, liquids such as water can be moved through the film. When this film is placed in a thermal gradient, a thermoelectric voltage is established that can be used to thereby remove ions within the water as it exits the material system. So the entire system is powered through the Seebeck effect and for small samples this has been shown. In this program we will attempt to demonstrate a scaleup of the concept using a small canister the size of a writing pen. When one end is dipped into the water the thermal gradient between that end and the one in air, caused by differences in the convectivity, will power the exchange of ions and purify the water for drinking. Streamline Automation will work in collaboration with its academic partners at Wake Forest University on this project. More »