New Water Nanofilter ‘Could Cut Diarrhea-Related Deaths’

Indian scientists have developed a cheap filter that may potentially rid drinking water of the bacterial and viral contaminants responsible for hundreds of thousands of diarrhea-related deaths in developing countries each year.

They say that their device can deliver safe drinking water to families in rural areas for just US$2.50 a year, including both the cost of the device and running costs. Their work was published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

This technique was already known as a promising way to provide safe drinking water, but it has proved a challenge to find an effective material to enable this.

"We had to find a material that was easily available, cheap, environmentally friendly and that maintained a sustained release of silver ions that could keep its concentration in water at less than 50 parts per billion, which is the WHO permissible level for silver [nanoparticles] in water," said Thalappil Pradeep, an author of the paper and a professor in IITM's chemistry department.

He says they chose a nanocomposite material called aluminium oxy-hydroxide-chitosan because both its structure and the diameter of the silver nanoparticles embedded in the material created optimal conditions for controlling the release of silver ions in temperatures ranging from five to 35 degrees Celsius.

Pradeep says that the silver nanoparticles are small enough to be highly active and therefore to easily release ions into the water, but large enough to be kept confined within the nanocomposite matrix, which acts as a cage to ensure limited interaction of the silver nanoparticles with water.

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