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Business and innovation

Business and innovation

Commercial partnership harnesses graphene to boost access to safe drinking water

21 Feb 2019 Alex Petkov 
Graphene research in progress with PhD student Tobias Bohn in the NGI lab
Graphene research in progress with PhD student Tobias Bohn in the NGI lab. (Courtesy: University of Manchester)

The National Graphene Institute (NGI) at the University of Manchester and the UK-based water filter manufacturer LifeSaver have embarked on an 18-month research project to commercialize graphene-based water filters. The partnership builds on research at the NGI on graphene membranes, which have shown promise for cheap and effective water treatment.

One of graphene’s many useful properties is water filtration at high flow rates, with research at the NGI suggesting that graphene-oxide membranes could be used for the cheap and easy desalination of water. However, says Rahul Nair, who will lead the project at the University of Manchester, the technology is still not commercially available.

“Making a graphene-based portable water filter was our dream, and this collaboration with LifeSaver will enable that dream to be a reality sooner than later,” he says. By combining the NGI’s graphene expertise with LifeSaver’s core capability in manufacturing portable water filters, Nair hopes that the project will create graphene-based filters that will “enhance the quality and availability of safe drinking water for those who need it most.”

LifeSaver already produces portable water filters aimed primarily at global travellers. The company’s current hollow-fibre membranes have an average sieve size of about 15 nm, which is small enough to filter out bacteria, microbial cysts and viruses. Through this research partnership, the company hopes to develop and patent a market-leading water filtration product with a sieve size of 1–3 nm.  That would be small enough to remove other common contaminants, such as heavy metals, pesticides, certain chemicals and possibly even nuclear radiation.

“For travellers who only use questionable water sources for a short period of time, the risks to their health are very low with our current products,” says LifeSaver product manager Wesley Clarke-Sullivan. “However, for communities who use a single-water source continually for their whole lives, certain elements in the water that we aren’t currently able to remove could eventually have adverse effects on their health.”

While LifeSaver’s portable and reusable water filters are great for outdoor enthusiasts, the company’s mission strongly revolves around humanitarian work. Last year, for example, after a series of earthquakes hit Indonesia, LifeSaver dispatched over 2000 water purifiers to the scene, capable of delivering 11.5 million litres of safe drinking water.

The company was founded in 2007 after UK inventor Michael Pritchard created the world’s first portable water filter that could remove even the smallest known waterborne viruses. LifeSaver hopes to make a difference in the lives of the 663 million people worldwide who currently have no access to safe drinking water.

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