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Holt estimates that these membranes could be brought to market within the next five to ten years. "The challenge is to scale up so we can produce usable amounts of these membrane materials for desalination, or gas separation, the other high-impact application for these membranes," he says, adding that the fabrication process is "inherently scalable."
Eventually, the membranes could be adapted for a variety of applications, ranging from pharmaceuticals to the food industry, where they could be used to separate sugars, for example, says co-author Olgica Bakajin, a physicist at LLNL. "Practically, the next step is figuring out how to take a general concept and modify it to a specific application," Bakajin says.
"There are many studies that one can imagine to build upon this study," says Northwestern's Ruoff. "Our understanding of molecular processes will be helped by experiments of this type. There are interesting possibilities for nanofluidic applications, such as in nanoelectromechanical systems and in 'smart' switching [on and off] of the flow through such small channels."
Startup Porifera is developing membranes to separate greenhouse gases from smokestacks.
A company says 3-D nanoparticles boost the efficiency of water purification.
Guest (Austin B. Carter, Jr.)
Because the nanotube membrane would
be a conductor of electricity, an
experiment to utilize the membrane
as an array of high voltage electrodes in electrostatic cooling of a metal plate across
which wind is blowing
Guest (Mark)
As important as cheap desalination is in a world with dwindling potable water supplies, I'm more excited at the prospect of cheap and efficient gas and partical filtration. Might this technology make coal-fired power generators enviromentally sound?
Guest (Justin)
RE: Gas and particle filtration
Just because you are able to trap the gasses escaping from a coal fired plant doesn’t mean you can dispose of them cheaply. CO2 gas still has to be put somewhere, currently we just put it back in the ground but this is just a stop gap measure and it is far from a permanent solution.
Guest (Umm)
How is putting it back in the ground a stop-gap solution? Nearly all the co2 in the world is in the ground, except for that which we've dug up and burned
Guest (Peter)
It's very hard to guarnatee that CO2 pumped into the ground will not leak, and thus places in which this is done much be closely monitored. We don't quite yet have the technology to safely replace CO2 in the ground "for sure".
Guest (wstephens)
Nobel laureate George Olah has a whole book about what could be done with exess co2 -- turn it into methanol.
Guest (Floyd)
Guest (ABS)
Seems that the methane would be useful as fuel source -- NG -- and thus reduce burning of coal. Not 'great', per se, but reducing burning of even worse GHG pollutant.
Guest (Jordan Smith)
Dude,
Methane is NATURAL GAS
(OK Methane is the major component of natural gas)
Anyhow send the methane to the nearest natural pipeline or load.
Guest (Will)
You guys do realize... that you have to put at minimum the amount of energy into the CO2->Methane process as you would get from burning the Methane...
It's a non-solution.
It is only a non solution because of the cost of energy. If an energy efficient means of converting energy, carbon dioxide, and water into methane gas is found then you can store energy for later use. Instead of taking it from underground and putting more carbon dioxide into the environment.
Guest (Rob)
Guest (Steve)
why on earth would anyone continue to use carbon based fuels if this technology can produce cleaner burning fuels such as hydrogen for much less?
Guest (Vick)
Why doesn't the filtered salt plug the holes?
It would have been good if the article would have explained where the filtered substance goes. Is the filter quickly ruined by the salts, or can it be easily cleaned?
Guest (water)
Guest (Bruce)
At this scale, it would be a case of the salt ions simply bouncing off the "membrane" and staying in solution on the one side.
Guest (Kered)
This isn't a filter at the bottom of a cone, it would be lining a tube-like structure with salinated water running through it, like a common garden seep hose.
Guest (Mike)
Can an array of these be fitted to larger pipes and then lowered into the depths of the ocean as to allow the physical forces of water pressure separate the desalinated water from the surrounding water, then through the same pressures drive the cleaned water to the surface where it can be capruted and stored? Sort of like a passive separation process since salt water and distilled water will have differing densities.
Guest
if so, just put a turbine on it for your source of free perpetual energy
Guest (Mike Bibby)
As the "distilled" water passes though the salt water towards the surface it will mix with the salt water and become salinized.
Guest (Dookie)
Wouldn't work like that, osmotic pressure would pull the water back through the filter.
Guest (Mike)
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/diffus.html#c4
I'm not an engineer per se, so your response has me stumped a little. If the Salt water is more dense, and the nano filter in place prevents salt from getting in, then the pure water - being less dense would simply fill up the tube - correct? Or is it just the opposite, where the pure water is smaller than the nano filter, and bleed back into the salt water if there is insufficient pressure to keep it moving in the right direction. If the latter - then a pump would be required to keep pure water flowing into the tube to be captured.
Guest
The higher concentration of salt in the ocean would exert a pull on the fresh water. If you were to put a long pipe down into the ocean with one of these membranes over the ende, the freshwater column inside the pipe would not reach the surface--a pump would be necessary to pull it up to the surface.
Guest
See this:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/osmosis.htm
Guest (Guillaume)
Guest (Nobody)
What nobody ever figures out here is: What are you going to do with the brine? Sea water is 3% salt. Suppose we can concentrate that to 30% -- if you dump that in the ocean, you'll kill everything around. You'll need a huge area of land to create "salt flats" where the water can evaporate without harm.
Guest
you can combine the desalinization plant with a waste water processing plant and then combine the brine with treated sewage. This treated sewage is already being poured back into the ocean
Guest (Gary Walker)
All you are doing is removing a little pure water from the salty ocean. When you use the water, it returns to the ocean eventually, rediluting the infinitesimally saltier ocean.
Guest (Mike)
How much water is going to be sucked out of the ocean to get 30% concentration - more importantly - where the heck will you store the clean water? Even pumping it underground, there would be enough ocean left to dilute the salt content. Back in the ice ages - when we had a lot of fresh water stored in the icepack the oceans were still capable of handling the load.
Guest (Joel)
"It's something that is quite counter-intuitive,"
I would imagine that capillary action allows the rigid nanotubes to pass the water more fluidly whereas traditional membranes require some pressure to coax the molecule through.
Guest (Scott)
I was thinking it might be due to water tension on a small scale. Possibly at this scale the molecules cannot align inside the tubes so they actually flow more freely and individually.
Of course.. I haven't taken any physics related courses in over a decade so I'm not going to pretend I actually know anything. :) Your theory sounds reasonable as well.
Guest (Debra)
I want to meet the people that innovated this new nano technology!
832-233-9122
Guest (Scott)
If it can trap green houses gasses too, I'd love to have underwear made of this material so I can fart all day and not bother my coworkers.
Guest (flatulatronics)
why wait for his to coem to market, you can already buy charcoal-impregnated underwear that absorbs noxious fumes from down under (and were not talking australia!)
Guest (Randy)
As one of his coworkers, I would like him to have this "special" underwear too!
Guest (Rune)
I'm just waiting for someone to come up with a nano-scale device to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen... :)
Guest (George)
At last a way to stop him from blasting holes in the ionisphere
Guest (Graham)
Oxygen enrichment for diesel engines
If filters this fine could be used to reduce the percentage of nitrogen drawn into a diesel engine then it would reduce emissions of oxides of nitrogen, reduce smoke and/or increase power output.
Guest (Ben)
I know a number of nano particles can cause serious health problems (respiration and gas exchange) if ingested. What sort of guarantees are there that we wouldn't be ingesting huge quantities of the nanotubes?
Guest (Geek Prophet)
The article says that the nanotubes are first grown, then embedded in silicon nitride. As a result, it is very unlikely that there will be a significant number floating in the resulting water.
Guest (max)
Ben, how much money do you get from companies dealing with water selling? hope you will never be thirsty in life. or go get nanotubes. and if you happen to eat them, well... s*it them out!
Guest (jordan Smith)
Tell your children not to eat the membranes! (Or to pulverize them and snort them)
As for you, I have no hope. Here is a MAJOR LIFE LESSON: There are no guarantees.
You are correct as far as the nanotube toxicity. Recycling must be mandatory.
Guest (Jo Anne)
An important consideration, Ben. Bound nanotubes are most likely not a health risk, but its important to consider the specific water conditions and how they might change that could result in the release nanotubes.
Guest (Marco)
Yeah so what if you ingested a couple of microscopic nanaotubes. It sure beats drinking coleric water.
Guest (Jess)
Well nano particals can be dangerious. Bucky balls they have just found out, if allowed to mingle with DNA. The DNA has a higher attraction to the bucky balls and some of the chemical chains are replaced, causing mutation and whatnot. Much like the body liking carbon dyoxide more than oxygen.
Guest (bob gordon)
Can these wonderous things seperate H2O into O and H2?...if so we can have cars that really run on water...screw the oil companies...
Guest (Geoerg)
Mineral extraction with pure water as by-product
Is the route to viability the ability to extract valuable elements (gold, uranium,...) with potable water 'merely' a by-product?
Guest (Austin B. Carter, Jr.)
Guest (George)
If H2O can be split, breathe the oxygen, burn the hydrogen for propulsion and, oh yes, wear the underwear.
Guest (George)
Breathe the concentrated oxygen,use the hydrogen to increase lift and, oh yes, being this close to the ionisphere, please wear your underwear
What's with the underwear? You're the second one that said that!!!
Guest (George)
Breathe concentrated oxygen,expel the nitrogen. If using H2O use hydrogen to reduce your weight and,please wear your nano-underwear.
Guest (Paul )
Range of uses for this technology
The core message of this article is that they have developed the first step in a filtration technology that can separate materials at a molecular level. Therefore you could use it with the right equipment infrstructure built around it for almost anything.
Vehicle fuel systems
Medical (such as dialysis and antisepsis)
Water cleaning
Waste processing
Water salt is not the only thing you can take out of seawater. What about the millions of tonnes of precious metals in solution? Run a large enough operation to filter millions of gallons of seawater with filters designed to catch larger molecules such as gold, and other metals and your system would pay for itself... probably not for a few thousand years but you would have a lot of gold etc. Of course keepin the fauna and flora out of your intake pipes could be a problem.
Re: Range of uses for this technology
EXACTLY! A filter is only as good as the pre-filters in-line before it.
Filtering RO water is fine and goes pretty fast but try and filter sludge, not so quick. I would guess several pre-filtration steps would be required to used this nanotube filter regardless of how the flow is applied to it.
Has the development of the nanotubes progresses to a stage where commercil production can be realised in the near future.What pressure is required for water to pass through tubes.Thank you
Folks;
Where and how can I buy these nanotubes?
How much does it cost each?
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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Guest (Colin)
Dialysis & Desalination
Google the terms "carbon nanotube membrane dialysis". Many hits. Good info. Desalination and dialysis have much in common. Cheap water and improved health. Cheers.
Reply
Guest (Debra)
LLNL
How does one collaborate with LLNL the new "carbon nantube membrane dialysis" is the discovery we've been waiting for and could immediately drop into our systems.
Reply
Guest (qzilla)
LLNL
Maybe call them on the phone?
Reply
Guest (Dave)
LLNL
Try the contacts here:
http://www.llnl.gov/pao/contact/
Including perhaps:
Ann Willoughby, Manager, Community &
External Relations
willoughby1@llnl.gov
(925) 423-4234
Gov't labs allow for a cooperative R&D agreement that is quite useful for efforts such as yours. Good Luck!
Reply
suhben
1 Comment
Re: LLNL
It looks a suprising news for human future.
I am very exciting to hear further development.
Ben
Reply