A new process for water filtration using carbon dioxide consumes one thousand times less energy than conventional methods.
The research was led by University of Limerick’s Dr Orest Shardt together with Dr Sangwoo Shin (now at University of Hawaii, Manoa), while they were post doctoral researchers at Princeton University last year.
With global demand for clean water increasing, there is a continuing need to improve the performance of water treatment processes. This new method which uses CO2 could be applied in a variety of industries such as mining, food and beverage production, pharmaceutical manufacturing and water treatment.
The research indicates that the new process could be easily scaled up, suggesting the technique could be particularly beneficial in both the developing and developed worlds. The new method could also be used to remove bacteria and viruses without chlorination or ultraviolet treatment.
Eventually, this new method could be used to clean water for human consumption or to treat effluent from industrial facilities.