A new invention that uses sunlight to drive water purification could help solve the problem of providing clean water off the grid. The device resembles a large sponge that soaks up water but leaves contaminants-like lead, oil and pathogens-behind. To collect the purified water from the sponge, one simply places it in sunlight. The researchers described the device in a paper published this week in the journal Advanced Materials. The inspiration for the device came from the pufferfish, a species that takes in water to swell its body when threatened, and then releases water when danger passes, said the device’s co-inventor Rodney Priestley, the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Princeton’s vice dean for innovation. “To me, the most exciting thing about this work is it can operate completely off-grid, at both large and small scales,” Priestley said. “It could also work in the developed world at sites where low-cost, non-powered water purification is needed.”
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-low-cost-solar-powered-filter-contaminants.html
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