Chinese Scientists Develop Eco-friendly Catalyst to Purify Water

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Chinese Scientists Develop Eco-friendly Catalyst to Purify Water

Chinese scientists have developed a metal-free catalyst that can purify pathogen-rich water in half an hour.

The study published in the latest version of journal Chem described the method that could produce drinking water in 30 minutes with a disinfection efficiency over 99.9999 percent under visible light.

Water disinfection with sunlight and metal is cost-effective but leads to the second pollution. According to the study, the metal-free catalysts, however, tend to have lower efficiency

Researchers from Yangzhou University and the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a material based on graphitic carbon nitride.

They used wet-chemical method to introduce certain chemical groups at the edges of graphitic carbon nitride, significantly improving its ability to disinfect.

"Its first-order disinfection rate was five times higher than that of previously reported best metal-free photocatalysts with only one tenth catalyst consumption," said the paper's co-author Wang Chengyin from Yangzhou University.

This catalyst can be fixed on substrates, reducing the potential toxicity caused by dispersed nano-materials in drinkable water, according to the study.

Source: Chinese Academy of Science

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