For arid and suffering from fires Australia, the provision of clean drinking water is an extremely pressing problem. No wonder it has been developed effective method of desalination. Scientists from Monash University in Melbourne created a new type of metal organic framework (MOF), which works like a sponge with selective properties. He pulls out of salt or seawater salt ions and absorbs them within itself.
New MOF received index PSP-MIL-53, it has a huge internal surface area. So, have a teaspoon of this material, it is comparable to the area of a football field. The structure of PSP-MIL-53 is adapted to work with salts, it is able to efficiently draw ions from the liquid. Experiments have shown that 30 minutes of contact with MOF total dissolved number of salt particles in the liquid dropped from 2233 ppm to less than 500. Despite the fact that the who standard is only 600 parts per million.
After water is purified, saturated with the salts of the MOF should be put under the sunlight to run the reaction of rejection of ions. On average, complete cleaning of the material takes less than 5 minutes. The result is that with 1kg PSP-MIL-53 during the light of day can be desalinated up to 140 liters of water. And all this without any energy cost, only by the light of the sun.
Source — Monash University