Graphene: The perfect water filter, page

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Researchers from the home of graphene, the University of Manchester in England, have discovered — seemingly by chance — one of the most important properties of graphene yet: It’s impermeable to everything but water. It is the perfect water filter.

In an experiment, the University of Manchester researchers filled a metal container with a variety of liquids and gases and then covered it with a film of graphene oxide. Their most sensitive equipment was unable to register any molecules leaving the container, except water vapor. The graphene oxide filter even prevented helium gas from escaping, which is notoriously finicky.

This is pretty awesome. Water purification is one of the most needed things for long-term sustainability. A perfect water filter would be immensely useful in many applications. Graphene is indeed a wonderful material, I think better than asking what it can do, we should ask what it cannot do.

And the most important thing..

In another experiment, Dr Nair & Co. sealed a bottle of vodka with the graphene filter. This allowed just the water to evaporate, effectively distilling it into super-vodka.

Here comes the Super-vodka!

reply to post by Maslo

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Interesting material, wonder if it could filter flouride ions out of my tap water.

reply to post by Maslo

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Interesting but not very useful , since you only get water vapour out.

Charcoal does the same thing and you get liquid water.

Probably much cheaper too.

reply to post by Swizzy

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It indeed seems to be able to filter salt out of the water. Dont know about the large scale feasibility.

reply to post by Maslo

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seems like would only be useful if it could filter the salt from the water itself as the salt will not be present in the water vapor to begin with

it is turning the salt water into water vapor that is expensive in salt water purification

i think

Originally posted by MentalData
reply to post by Maslo

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Interesting material, wonder if it could filter flouride ions out of my tap water.

A Zero Water filter will filter out Fluoride. I have one myself, but need to replace the filter. When i first got it two years ago the dissolved solids level after filtering was 0 (it comes with a TDS meter). Now it's back to tap level, a disgusting 240.

reply to post by xacto

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Never heard of it, gotta take a look. I was under the impression that only reverse osmosis could remove it. Do you know how rthe filter works?

reply to post by xacto

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Sorry Bud, its not GUARANTEED to remove flouride, and I highly doubt that their tester is expensive enough (digital reader, 30 bucks) to ensure that a reading of zero MEANS zero. From their site:

Q. Does the ZeroWater filter remove Floride?

A. ZeroWater filters are not certified for the reduction of fluoride however fluoride is an inorganic compound. The TDS meter is designed to detect inorganic compounds. Fluoride levels in water are usually around 2 to 4 ppm, which will show up on the meter as 002 to 004. So when filtered water reads 000 it is not likely that fluoride is present in water.

Now, I'm sure that SOME of the fluoride gets removed, and that the filter does fine. But it's not certified to do so (its not certified to filter a LOT of harmful components, including bacteria and cryptosporidium), and I've paid more out of pocket for a decent hydrometer.

Thought i would go back and say that I wasn't trying to attack your point. Some filtration is better than none, but we all have to remember what people will say to make a buck, and how effective marketing can be.

graphene-the-perfect-water-filter

and by the sound of it, if graphene oxide really is completely impermeable to everything except water, this new filter would make clean water out of anything. Sea water, gray water, sewage…

So yes even salt water.

Why can you not have the water touch the filter? Who said it had to evaporate and only evaporate?

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