Research on Switchable Water by Queen University
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
CanadianScientists Changing the Properties of Water by Mixing it with a Nitrogen-based Compound and Adding or Removing Gaseous Carbon Dioxide to the System
Water is rarely pure; instead, it often contains dissolved ions or is mixed with other liquids. Scientists can change the composition of water by separating its mixtures, which is most commonly performed by distillation. However, distillation is an energy-intensive process.
Reversible reaction of carbon dioxide and a nitrogen-containing compound, the ionic strength of water can be reversibly switched: the ionic strength increases upon insertion of carbon dioxide in the liquid, and decreases with its removal. If water were originally mixed with an organic solvent, an increasing ionic strength of water would cause the mixture to separate into two different liquid phases, which are typically separated by a membrane. In principle, other "switchable solvents" would exhibit carbon-dioxide-mediated changes in hydrophilicity, polarity, fluorescence properties, or viscosity.
Switchable solvents are still a very new area, however, and there is much that remains unknown. For example, it would be very helpful to know the rate of the phase-separation process in switchable water systems, the optimal CO2concentration, and the efficiency of nitrogenous bases for liquid-liquid phase separation.
In a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , a team of researchers including Gabriella Lestari and Milad Abolhasani, led by Prof. Eugenia Kumacheva at the University of Toronto, have turned to a new tool called microfluidics to explore liquid-liquid phase separation in an efficient way. Although microfluidics strategies have previously been used to study CO2-related processes in liquid solvents, this is the first time that microfluidics has been applied to studies of liquid-liquid phase separation mediated by water switching.
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