Fresh water for millions of people: a great discovery from South Korea (small country)
It is often said that it is necessary to have "big consortia", big countries, big unions, to make big scientific discoveries. The discovery we are about to present to you comes from a state of 40 million people, rather isolationist, but which is a global research hub, South Korea.
The South Korean system is based on the use of a membrane, but very particular. The use of membranes is nothing new, but when used to filter seawater, it must remain dry for long periods of time. If the membrane gets wet, the filtration process becomes ineffective and allows large amounts of salt to pass through. If you want to use this technique you have to change it very often.
Researcher Yunchul Woo and his team at the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) have now developed a highly water-repellent and long-term stable membrane.
The membrane is made up of nanofibers that have been fabricated in a three-dimensional hierarchical structure, achieved using a type of nanotechnology called electrospinning. Using this technology, the researchers were able to fabricate a highly water-repellent membrane.
The special nature of the membrane is useful because it is designed not to allow the passage of water molecules. Instead, a temperature difference is applied on the two sides of the membrane which evaporates the water from one end into water vapor. The membrane allows the passage of water vapor, which then condenses on the colder side. This method, called membrane distillation, leaves the water with the salt on one side and only the sweet one is filtered.
The Korean researchers also used silica airgel in the membrane manufacturing process which further improved the flow of water vapor across the membrane, providing faster access to desalinated water. The team tested their technology for continuous operation for 30 days and found that the membrane continued to filter 99.9% of the salt with no problems with getting wet. this membrane can, with low energy use, solve the problems of populations living in desert areas near the sea, such as North Africa, allowing them to enjoy the fresh water necessary for personal and agricultural use. All from a small nation of 40 million inhabitants, not from EU research …
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The article Fresh water for millions of people: a great discovery from South Korea (small country) comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/acqua-dolce-per-milioni-di-persone-un-grande-scoperta-dalla-corea-del-sud-piccolo-paese/ on Fri, 09 Jul 2021 20:55:04 +0000.