IISER new material removes pollutants from water
- January 8, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
No Comments
IISER new material removes pollutants from water
Subject :Environment
Context:
- Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune came up with a custom-designed unique molecular sponge-like material — macro/microporous ionic organic framework — which can swiftly clean polluted water by soaking up sinister contaminants.
Water contaminants:
- Systematic studies have identified various organic (organic dyes, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.) as well as inorganic toxic pollutants such as iodides, and oxo-pollutants like perrhenate that are carcinogenic in freshwater sources and can pose a direct threat to humanity and living organisms.
New material to purify water:
- In general, commonly utilised sorbent materials often trap the pollutants through an ion-exchange strategy to purify water but suffer from poor kinetics and specificity.
- To mitigate this issue, researchers have prepared a newly engineered material called viologen-unit grafted organic-framework (iVOFm).
- The material employs amalgamation of electrostatics driven ion-exchange combined with nanometer-sized macropores and specific binding sites for the targeted pollutants.
- The size and number of tunable macropores along with the strong electrostatic interaction of iVOFm can quickly remove various toxic pollutants from water.
- Researchers employed a make-and-break strategy to grow a charged porous organic polymer (POP) as a sponge-like infinite framework on silica nanoparticles that is used as a template.
- Following this, the silica nanoparticles were strategically removed to create ordered hierarchical interconnected macro/microporosity throughout the material.
Fast diffusion:
- This material features inherent cationic nature and macroporosity to allow fast diffusion of pollutants.
- When tested for a wide array of water pollutants, it showed ultrafast capture of all the pollutants– both organic and inorganic- with over 93% removal in just 30 seconds.
- The engineered material could remove sulfadimethoxine antibiotic with high efficiency.
- It can also be used several times to clean contaminated water.