Chemists from the University of California, Berkeley, identify a way to improve the desalination process, a discovery with potentially significant ramifications as water shortages become more commonplace around the world. According to the university, the new technique simplifies the removal of toxic metals such as mercury to produce clean water while at the same time capturing more valuable metals like gold.
Desalination – the removal of salt – is typically a costly and labor-intensive process that involves a series of pre- and post-treatment systems that water must go through one by one. The new method, which embeds polymer membranes with nanoparticles that selectively remove ionic compounds, can easily be added to current membrane-based electrodialysis desalination processes, according to the university, and complete several of these steps all in one.
Read more about the process here.
