Inspired by trees, IIT Gandhinagar researchers develop method to make seawater drinkable

Inspired by how trees intake water, IIT Gandhinagar researchers have developed a cost-effective and environment-friendly water desalination technique to make seawater drinkable.

Have you ever thought of drinking seawater to quench your thirst and also save energy? While this is possible after desalination, the process is so energy-intensive that large-scale use of this has always been a problem.

However, this will soon be a reality as a team of researchers at IIT Gandhinagar have developed a cost-effective and environment-friendly water desalination technique that can successfully remove more than 99% of salt ions and other impurities with natural processing to make seawater potable.

This is the first such method that could controllably manipulate graphite inside aqueous solutions without damaging the structural integrity of graphite.

These findings were recently reported in Nature Communications, an international high-impact journal.

According to a report from the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly one-fifth of the world population lives in areas that are devoid of clean drinking water.

The continuous increase in population and enormous energy demands has put immense pressure on conventional clean water resources.