Give the world safe drinking water, using nanotechnology!
A water treatment system that can provide thousands of gallons of sterile water from even the most diseased source... it's portable, suitable for home use, doubles as a 5-gallon jerry can... it exists today, and when manufactured in volume, can provide clean water for the billions who don't have it today, for only $20 billion.
The heart of the system is a filter with 15-nanometer pores. The smallest water-borne virus, polio, is 25 nanometers. Thus, no disease can get through, and no chemicals are needed to make the water completely sterile. (A similar approach is the LifeStraw, which uses a larger filter plus iodine. It's even less expensive, but Wikipedia says that it may not remove all organisms.)
Here's a TED talk where the inventor, Michael Pritchard, mixes up a thoroughly disgusting concoction, filters it, and then drinks it. Pritchard talks about the potential of the technology for disaster relief and explains how little it could cost to provide clean drinking water for everyone.
A friend of mine grew up in Venezuela, and when I would talk about nanotechnology, she would always answer with stories of conditions in developing nations, asking "What can technology do about that?" I'm glad to finally have an answer for her.
Although this isn't the first solution to be proposed for the problem of clean water, it may be enough less expensive, more effective, more independent of infrastructure, and easier to distribute and use... it may be the answer that finally inspires the world to solve the problem rather than just chipping away at it. I'll be donating and fundraising for it.
Fantastic. This is the direction nanotechnology needs to go in. Too much research focuses on making life more comfortable for already comfortable people. I'm pleased to an advance that addresses such a critical global issue.
Posted by: Benjamin Abbott | December 17, 2009 at 05:02 PM
Its amazing how far nano technology has come. Its hard to imagine how much more things can still be improved upon! Pico water filters some day maybe?
Posted by: Justin | December 25, 2009 at 01:42 PM
A pico water filter would be able to filter out individual atoms. Unfortunately, water is made of atoms, so there's a lower bound on the pore size.
Pores of just the right size and material should be able to filter out almost any molecule that isn't water. Reverse osmosis membranes do this today, but nano-built membranes would probably be able to have lower flow resistance.
Posted by: Chris Phoenix, CRN | January 05, 2010 at 02:28 PM
I'm blown away by this use of nano technology and its potential to give safe water, one of our most basic needs, to the people that need it the most.
Posted by: David | February 17, 2010 at 04:51 PM