As the polluted water, such as rain, seawater, groundwater, river water, sewage, and wastewater passes through this sandwiched membrane, electricity is produced at the top in the horizontal direction by the movement of ions, while the bottom membrane simultaneously purifies the water in the perpendicular direction.
The scientists claim that the membrane can reject over 90% of the pollutants less than 10 nm in size, like microplastics and highly toxic heavy metal particles like arsenic, lead, cobalt, zinc, etc., which are undetectable to the eye.While the icing on the cake is the added benefit of electricity production, the cherry on top is its low manufacturing cost. Produced using a simple printing process, this is a cost-effective technology that has the potential to be commercialized at a greater scale.
Dr. Ji-Soo Jang, lead researcher and senior research scientist at the Korea Institute of Science & Technology, said, "As a novel technology that can solve water shortage problem and produce eco-friendly energy simultaneously, it also has great potential applications in the water quality management system and emergency power system."
This research was conducted as a major project of KIST with the support of South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT . The membrane has been jointly developed by a team from the Electronic Materials Research Center at KIST and a team from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, at Myongji University.
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