America
Indian-American develops novel technology for water filtration
New York, Aug 1
An Indian American researcher
has developed a self-assembling synthetic membrane that may aid in
better gas separation, water purification, drug delivery and DNA
recognition.
This membrane is composed of lipids -- fat molecules
-- and protein-appended molecules that form water channels that
transfer water at the rate of natural membranes, and self-assembles into
two-dimensional structures with parallel channels.
"Nature does
things very efficiently and transport proteins are amazing machines
present in biological membranes. They have functions that are hard to
replicate in synthetic systems,†said Manish Kumar, assistant professor
of chemical engineering at Pennsylvania State University.
The most obvious use of the technology is to make highly efficient water purification membranes, Kumar added.
The
researchers developed a second-generation synthetic water channel that
improves on earlier attempts to mimic aquaporins - natural water channel
proteins -- by being more stable and easier to manufacture.
ÂgWe
were surprised to see transport rates approaching the 'holy grail'
number of a billion water molecules per channel per second," Kumar
noted.
The team also found that these artificial channels like to
associate with each other in a membrane to make 2D arrays with a very
high pore density.
The researchers consider that these membranes
are much better than the first-generation artificial water channels
reported to date.
The results were outlined in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.