Overview
Having enough clean drinking water may not be an issue that plagues you day-to-day. But it is an issue that plagues billions of people around the world and has been at the forefront of news with Cape Town, South Africa, reaching its final 90 days of water. In a scientific breakthrough, Australian scientists have just discovered a way to easily purify water using an ingredient found in vegetable oil — and they tested it using the iconic Sydney Harbour.
CSIRO scientists created a small filtration device, a tiny membrane dubbed Graphair, that can quickly purify water in a single step. As it's made from soybean oil, it's also cheap to make.
To test the effectiveness of the device, the group of scientists purified water from the Sydney Harbour (which, while known for its beauty, certainly isn't known for its cleanliness). And it worked so well, the resulting water was safe to drink.
The scientists published their results overnight in Nature Communications, an open-access journal, and plan to take the product overseas to developing countries next year.
Source and image: CSIRO