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The gel will extract water from the desert air

20.06.2023

MIT scientists have developed an innovative gel capable of extracting incredible amounts of water from the air, even in low humidity environments like deserts.

This hydrogel, created by researchers, has the unique ability to instantly absorb moisture from the air, even at a relative humidity of only 30%. The material effectively retains moisture, preventing it from leaking, and allows it to condense and be collected for use.

The synthesized material, which is a transparent and elastic gel, is made from hydrogel, which is already used in products such as disposable diapers due to its ability to absorb moisture. However, the researchers improved this ability by adding lithium chloride, a powerful desiccant.

In early experiments, scientists soaked hydrogels in salt water and waited for them to soak up the salt. However, the process was very slow and most experiments took 24 to 48 hours. To improve the performance of the material, the engineers modified this technology to increase its ability to absorb salt and water.

The researchers used standard methods to synthesize hydrogel tubes from polyacrylamide, then cut them into thin disks and dipped them in a lithium chloride solution with varying salt concentrations. Every day, they removed the disks from the solution, weighed and measured the amount of salt that had penetrated, and then returned them back to the solution.

The results showed that the hydrogels absorbed more and more salt over time. After 30 days of soaking, the hydrogels incorporated up to 24 g of salt, which is a record compared to previous results, where only 1 g of salt per 6 g of polymer. Absorptive capacity tests have shown that such a material under conditions of relative humidity of 30% is able to absorb up to 1,79 g of water per 1 g of material, which corresponds to dry desert air.

The next stage of the research will be the study of kinetics and the development of ways to accelerate the process of water absorption by the material. This will greatly increase the efficiency of material recycling, allowing you to collect water several times a day, instead of a single collection. According to study co-author Gustav Graeber, this discovery provides potential opportunities for more efficient use of water resources in dry regions and will overcome problems with access to drinking water in desert areas.

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Nanopurification of water and soil 08.08.2015

Chemical pollutants often turn out to be elusive and difficult to destroy - the molecules of many pesticides and, for example, bisphenol A, used in the production of plastics, are very resistant to decomposition under normal conditions, so that cleaning water and soil from such substances becomes a very expensive and time-consuming matter: after all, here it is necessary to somehow catch pollutants from the environment in order to destroy them later by special methods.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created special nanoparticles that could greatly simplify the fight against such pollutants. Ferdinand Brandl (Ferdinand Brandl), Nicolas Bertrand (Nicolas Bertrand) and their colleagues synthesized a polymer substance from polyethylene glycol and polyactic acid - the first is part of eye drops, toothpastes, laxatives, etc., and, therefore, is harmless, and the second serves as one of the main components of biodegradable plastic. Nanoparticles made of such a polymer consist of a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic shell; due to molecular forces, hydrophobic contaminants, trying to get to the inner layer of the nanoparticle, will stick to its surface.

But in this form, the pollutant will remain in solution, even if it sticks to the nanoparticles. The trick is that the polymer from which the particles are made is destroyed under the action of ultraviolet radiation so that the hydrophilic shell disappears, and the hydrophobic core unfolds, "explodes" - it is no longer stabilized by the hydrophilic shell, which, due to interaction with water, kept the interior of the particle in a compact condition. Expanded particles with adhering pollutant molecules stick together, and as a result, a rather large supramolecular aggregate is obtained. Only, unlike individual harmful molecules and individual particles, such aggregates are easy to collect: they can be precipitated by centrifugation or, for example, simply filtered.

Using these nanoparticles, scientists have been able to purify solutions containing phthalates and bisphenol A, which interfere with hormonal signaling pathways; the particles also proved to be effective in cleaning the soil from aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons, which are formed during the incomplete combustion of various types of fuel and which, as is known, can be strong carcinogens. The unfolded polymer cannot fold back into a nanoparticle, and if for some reason the polymer microlump does not settle and filter out, then, made of biodegradable material, it will collapse itself over time, that is, there will be no additional pollution.

A huge plus of the method is its simplicity: the substance of nanoparticles is synthesized at room temperature, there is no need to modify them (they snatch substances from the solution non-specifically and are suitable for any hydrophobic chemicals), purification occurs without complex multi-stage procedures.

In addition, a sufficiently large ratio of surface area to volume allows a small number of nanoparticles to capture many harmful molecules. According to the initial thought of the authors of the work, such particles were supposed to deliver the drug to cancer cells, but the stumbling block was the need for ultraviolet light, which, firstly, does not pass well through the skin, and secondly, damages DNA in those cells, including healthy ones. which he did get to.

And yet, the method can find application not only in cleaning the environment from pollutants, but also in medicine, pharmacology, analytical chemistry, and even in the food industry: for example, using unfolding and sticking nanoparticles, it is possible to remove caffeine when preparing decaffeinated coffee.

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