Nanomaterial Harvests Clean Water from Airborne Water Vapor
Scientists from Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, and India have worked together to create a new nanomaterial that could efficiently harvest clean drinking water from airborne water vapor.
In the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the team shared that the nanomaterial made of calcium-intercalated graphene oxide aerogel could store more than three times its weight in water and release safe drinking water at low temperatures.
Graphene oxide’s strong water adsorption characteristics, when paired with calcium’s high water adsorption qualities, have resulted in strong hydrogen bonds. Researchers observed that calcium ions positively reacted with oxygen in graphene, strengthening the hydrogen bonds that allow the material to adsorb water more effectively.
Xiaojun Ren, a research assistant at the University of New South Wales and the study’s first author, explained:
“We measured the amount of water adsorbed onto graphene oxide by itself and we measured X. We measured the amount of water adsorbed onto calcium itself and we got Y. When we measured the amount of water adsorbed onto the calcium-intercalated graphene oxide we got much more than X+Y. Or it is like 1+1 equals a number larger than 2.”
The team also shaped the calcium-intercalated graphene oxide material into an aerogel. Aerogels are known for being one of the lightest solid materials. They also have micro and nanometer-sized pores that give them a large surface area that functions like a sponge.
Daria Andreeva, the study’s co-author and principal investigator from the National University of Singapore’s Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, added:
“The only energy this system requires is the small amount needed to heat the system to about 50 degrees to release the water from the aerogel.”
When the nanomaterial is heated, the desorption process begins, allowing the membrane to release the captured water.
This study was conducted using the Canberra-based Australian National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) supercomputer that helped model simulations at the molecular level.
Read the full article here to learn more about the new nanomaterial.
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