Skip to main content

Water, water, everywhere: photonics can make sure it’s fit to drink

Do you have ready access to clean drinking water?
That isn’t something everyone around the planet can take for granted. More than a billion people do not have access to clean water, and around 1.5 million children die each year as a result of water-borne diseases.
Several projects we’ve heard about recently are employing photonics technologies to change this picture and save lives.
  • A European Union research consortium is working on a compact, low-cost photocatalytic water treatment system that uses photons from sunlight to decompose organic pollutants in water. The completed system will resemble rooftop solar panels, and will be placed on dwellings near ponds and streams with poor water quality. It will require no electricity or chemicals, so will be well-suited to developing regions – and sustainable, wherever it is installed. Funded by an EU Seventh Framework Programme grant ,the consortium includes groups from Denmark, France, Italy, Israel, Jordan, South Africa, and the UK.
  • Among the scientists involved in the EU project  are several at Tel Aviv University, where a number of far-reaching water research efforts are in play. Dror Avisar and Hadas Mamane have initiated a planned water research center where the main goal will be to improve water reclamation methods, using new technologies the remove pesticides and other chemicals.
  • A program at the University of Rochester has spun up a business plan for a new company with the goal of building inexpensive solar-powered water pumps to provide drinking and irrigation water in off-grid locations in drought-prone regions. Partners in the proposed venture are Daniel Williams, a doctoral student at the Institute of Optics; Awak Malith, a UR physics graduate who fled war-torn Sudan as a child; and Chilean business students Roberto Chavarria (a civil engineer) and Paul Oyaneder (a social psychologist).

Awak Malith (center) on a visit last year to Sudan.

  • Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes have developed a bio-sensor that reacts to a wide range of potentially hazardous substances in just a few minutes, enabling constant, real-time monitoring of drinking water. The system can detect substances such as cyanide, ricin, or toxic metabolic products from bacteria that can be fatal even in concentrations of nanograms per liter. Among those working on the project at Fraunhofer are Iris Trick (Institute for Interdisciplinary Engineering and Biotechnology-IGB) and Thomas Bernard (Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation-IOSB). Also participating are researchers at project partner Moldaenke. 
You can learn more about the world’s water problems from several sources. Among them are:
And maybe you have ideas for more solutions?



Comments

  1. I was browsing the internet for pumps related blogs to comment and I came across yours. I've read this article and I have here the excerpt of that piece which I believe is true and humane. It says: "Expanding access to water and sanitation is a moral and ethical imperative rooted in the cultural and religious traditions of communities around the world. Dignity, equity, compassion and solidarity are values shared all over the world. Extending water supply and sanitation services to poor households would largely contribute to promoting them. The Right to Water, recently proclaimed by the United Nations, (General Comment No 15, 2002), is said to be "indispensable for leading a life in human dignity" and "a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Ways to Celebrate the first International Day of Light

The first International Day of Light (IDL) is less than a month away. A global initiative highlighting the importance of light and light-based technologies, communities around the world are planning events celebrating IDL on 16 May. First Place Winner of the 2017 SPIE IDL Photo Contest SPIE will participate in outreach events local to our community in Bellingham, Washington, attend the inauguration in Paris, France, and host an IDL reception for our conference attendees at SPIE Optical Systems Design in Frankfurt, Germany taking place May 14-17. SPIE is also supporting local events in 13 different communities from the US to India, Canada to South Africa, who were awarded SPIE IDL Micro Grants to create activities that highlight the critical role light plays in our daily lives. Do you need some ideas on how to show your appreciation of light on the 16th? Here is our top ten list of ways you can celebrate IDL 2018: 1. Throw a Celebration:  Light up your party with light an

#FacesofPhotonics: NASA Intern Elaine Stewart

MIRROR, MIRROR: Elaine with the JWST at Goddard Space  Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland Meet Elaine Stewart: chemical engineering student, world-traveler, intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and this week's SPIE Face of Photonics. Elaine is fascinated by space exploration and how optics impacts our ability to "study distant stars that have never been seen before." Her research has taken her around the world -- from Bochum, Germany, where she studied material science and engineering at Ruhr-Universität, to Houston, Texas, to work on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) while it was under cryogenic vacuum chamber testing, to Melbourne, Australia, where she studied biochemical and product engineering at the University of Melbourne in 2017. And, when she's not busy traversing the globe, she is focusing on graduating from the University of Delaware in 2019 with a Bachelor's in Chemical Engineering. Elaine makes a point of remaining an active

Taking a Deep Dive into the World of Biophotonics

Gavrielle presents her research in Ven SPIE Student Member Gavrielle Untracht is pursuing her PhD at The University of Western Australia. She had the chance to participate in the 9th International Graduate Summer School in Biophotonics this past June on the island of Ven between Sweden and Denmark. At the school, sponsored by SPIE, invited experts from around the globe gave extended presentations on topics like tissue optics, strategies for cancer treatment using lasers, and entrepreneurship in photonics. Attendees also had the opportunity to present their current research projects, results, or ideas. Gavrielle shares her experiences of the summer school with this community in the following guest blog post. I recently returned from a week of great discussions and beautiful weather at the 9th Biophotonics Summer School on the Isle of Ven, Sweden. This experience, made possible (in part) by SPIE, was an invaluable opportunity for networking and a deep dive into the world of bi