In the future, contaminated water may be made drinkable not through the addition of harsh chemicals, but by pouring in a bucket of swimming robots instead. Spherical microbots have been developed that swim around under their own power to catch and kill deadly bacteria before being easily removed.
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Oftentimes, the places that require water purification the most – such as developing nations or disaster sites – have the least in the way of infrastructure. Help could be on the way, however, in the form of water filters made from wood.
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To help bring heavy-duty sterilization into battlefield or emergency situations, Ohio State University have created a flexible, lightweight, LED-based, deep-UV foil prototype that can be wrapped around items and energized to kill harmful microorganisms
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The Roving Blue O-Pen supports world travellers and nomads by keeping drinking water clean and fresh. In contrast to more common purification means, like UV rays, this pen-sized purification device kills microorganisms with the stuff that blocks those UV rays in the atmosphere: ozone.
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Powder made from spent coffee grounds can be used to rid water of harmful heavy metal ions, although the powder then needs to be filtered out of the water. Scientists have developed a step-saving alternative, in the form of a filter made of coffee-impregnated foam.
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Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed a sun-activated device that kills 99.999 percent of bacteria in water, within just 20 minutes.
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For people in developing nations, getting clean water may soon be as simple as opening a book … The Drinkable Book, that is. Each of its pages is made from a thick sheet of paper impregnated with silver nanoparticles, that kill 99.9 percent of microbes in tainted water.
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Panasonic recently unveiled a new technology to purify water using sunlight and photocalysts. The system purifies polluted water at a high reaction rate, to improve access to clean water where it is needed.
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Dragan Tutić felt that using wave power to turn seawater into the drinkable variety on the spot had been largely unexplored. Having now developed a prototype, he hopes to deploy his wave-powered desalinator to where water scarcity threatens the survival of coastal communities.
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Drinking recycled urine may be the stuff of <em>Dune</em> novels, but officials in Santa Clara County in the heart of Silicon Valley are hoping its new high-tech purification plant will help residents get past the ick factor and eventually allow treated wastewater to flow through their faucets.
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