New Portable Water Filtration Device
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
High School Student in Melbourne Has Created a Portable Device that Purifies Wastewater While Generating Electricity Sustainably and Affordably
Cynthia Lam'sdevice, which she calls a Portable Photocatalytic Electricity Generation and Water Purification Unit, or H2Pro for short, produces both clean energy and fresh water at the same time and is an entry in the Google Science Fair 2014.
There already existed a design for mobile hydrogen energy and water supply that, although feasible, needed an external solar power source to purify water and produce hydrogen through an electrolyzer, making it costlier and less efficient. This inspired Lam to create a self-sustainable portable device that can purify wastewater and produce electricity through only photocatalysis (without any additional electricity source).
Based on what Lam developed from investigating photocatalysis, she aimed to create a device that can put the mechanisms into practice. In photocatalysis, not only water is purified and sterilized, but hydrogen is also produced through water-splitting, which can be used to generate electricity. The entire sustainable process only needs titania and light-no additional power source is required.
However, hydrogen production is generally low since photoexcited electrons tend to fall back to the hole (i.e.photoinduced electron-hole combination). Fortunately, it can be overcome by adding reductants, while some organic pollutants serve such purpose. Hence, Lam proposed to combine the two mechanisms together to enhance the yield and lower the cost of hydrogen generation, meanwhile efficient water purification can also be achieved.
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