Scientist Wins Award for Innovative Water-filtering Technology

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Scientist Wins Award for Innovative Water-filtering Technology

Hydraulic fracturing has been under fire for the amount of concentrated wastewater produced by the fracking process — up to 3 to 5 million gallons per drill site. However, a new technology developed atIdaho National Laboratorycould change that by turning fracking wastewater back into potable water.

Switchable Polarity Solvent Forward Osmosis (SPS FO) is a groundbreaking technology, developed by a team led by INL researcher Aaron Wilson, which combines two known processes to create a brand-new, efficient water-filtration system. SPS FO can cleanse highly concentrated industrial wastewater to make purified water, and has won several outstanding innovation awards, including a 2013 R&D 100 Award, a Idaho Innovation Award for Early-Stage Innovation, and an Outstanding Technology Development Award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium Far West Region.

What is forward osmosis?

When someone opens a window on a warm spring day, usually a screen is in place - not just as a barrier to insects — but also to allow fresh air into the room. Forward osmosis acts in the same way: a permeable membrane allows water to pass through while keeping out particles or contaminants with specific properties.

Osmosis works because water molecules "want" to move from an area of low solute concentration to high concentration to create equilibrium — just as water would be inclined to flow from a relatively dilute Kool-Aid mixture toward a heavily concentrated Kool-Aid. This is the challenge Wilson faced. For water to be drawn out of dirty, contaminated wastewater, the other side of the membrane would have to be even more concentrated.

At first, this may seem counterproductive: how do you purify water by pulling it into an even more concentrated solution? To answer that, Wilson looked to a new procedure, switchable polarity solvents.

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