Safe water is one of the big problems that our planet is facing. UNICEF states that there are about 1.42 billion people who live in areas with scarce and vulnerable water. Out of these people, 450 million are children.
To solve this, engineers tried to create freshwater from seawater. The results of these were desalination systems — systems that filtered out salt from seawater. However, it is an expensive solution.
Is there a more affordable way to solve the world's water problem? Yi Zheng probably also asked the same question of himself. And when he visited a local dairy farm one summer day, he found something that inspired him to take on the problem. Manure.
When he asked for a bucket of manure from the farmer for study, the latter did not hesitate and gave his request "free of charge." And when he did study it in his laboratory, the Northeastern professor found something rather interesting.
When heated up to 1,700°C, the powdered carbon produced from the manure could be used as a desalinator. What's more interesting is that the desalinated water turned out to have a lower sodium concentration than the set standard by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water.
More about this over at News at Northeastern.
(All Images: Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University)
#DrinkingWater #Desalination #Freshwater #UNICEF