Novel Tech for Water Filtration
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
An Indian-American has developed a self-assembling synthetic membrane that can aid in better water purification, drug delivery and DNA recognition by transporting a billion water molecules per channel per second
The biomimetic membrane has been developed by Manish Kumar, assistant professor of chemical engineering in Penn State.
The 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 2-dimensional structures with parallel channels.
"They have functions that are hard to replicate in synthetic systems," he 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.
Kumar and co-authors report their development in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
"We were surprised to see transport rates approaching the 'holy grail' number of a billion water molecules per channel per second," Kumar was quoted as saying by Science Daily.
Source: The Economic Times
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