Veolia Water Technologies by GineersNow Engineering Magazine GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 | Page 38

THIS
PAPER
WILL
FURTHER
FILTER
VIRUSES
IN YOUR
WATER
Access to safe drinking water
is identified by the UN as a
perennial problem in most parts
of the world, placing it among
its Sustainable Development
Goals. Researchers from various
institutions have already
devised ways to purify water,
but it’s only now that we are
offered with a solution – and it’s
a paper – to further clean the
water with its viruses.
Scientists at Uppsala University
created a paper called Mille-
Feuille Filter, which is composed
of layers of thin cellulose
nanofibers developed from
green algae. It is so named
because of its internal
architecture likened to the
French puff pastry mille-feuille.
Albert
Mihranyan,
lead
researcher and Professor of
Nanotechnology at the said
university, shared, “With a filter
material directly from nature,
and by using simple production
methods, we believe that our
filter paper can become the
affordable global water filtration
solution and help save lives.
Our goal is to develop a filter
paper that can remove even the
toughest viruses from water as
HOW
DIAMONDS
ARE USED IN
WASTEWATER
TREATMENT
Diamonds are commonly used
as ornamental accessories,
but little do we know about
its many applications in the
engineering field. It is used in
precision machining, drilling,
optics, acoustics, electronics and
38
SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies
even wastewater treatment—
yep, that’s right. Wastewater
treatment
involves
using
diamonds.
According to Dr. Tim Mollart,
senior applications engineer
at Element Six group in a
podcast there are many
applications for the boron
doped diamond. This include
caustic wastewater from oil
refining processes, de-coloring
of textile waters, toxic
pharmaceutical wastewater,
easily as brewing coffee.”
Water viruses are dangerous
as they are physically difficult
to remove due to their size.
They can also be resistant to
disinfectants such as chlorine.
This path, filtration, is perceived
to be the more effective and
energy-efficient
purification
option and the paper being the
cheapest to date.
Photo by SimonGustafsson
and landfill leachate which can
include ammonia and nitrates.
“It’s the fact that diamond is
a catch-all advanced oxidation
treatment process that’s really
key here,” Mollart said in a
podcast.
According to the podcast, boron
diamond is effective for three
important reasons:
“It suppresses the oxygen gas
generation while generating a
hydroxyl radical.”
“It is chemically inert.”
“You can operate the systems
at extremely high-power density
and extremely high efficiency.”
Photo by Playbuzz