Imagine cutting CO2 emissions and purifying water with plastic! Of course not any old plastic will do so, it definitely has to be a special kind of plastic which can be so eco-friendly. A new plastic membrane which is similar to the membrane found in plants has been developed as part of an international collaboration involving researchers from Hanyang University in Korea, the University of Texas and CSIRO. This amazing new plastic membrane not only allows carbon dioxide and other small molecules to move through its hourglass-shaped pores, but, also prevents the movement of larger molecules like methane. Now, this is good news indeed, incase you didn’t know separating carbon dioxide from methane is important in natural gas processing and gas recovery from landfill. What is plastic? It is the generally used for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products. Because plastics are durable and degrade very slowly, they are not a hot favorite with the environment lovers. Manufacturing of plastics often creates large quantities of chemical pollutants. Dr Anita Hill of CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering said,
the ability of the new plastic to separate small molecules surpasses the limits of any conventional plastics. It can separate carbon dioxide from natural gas a few hundred times faster than current plastic membranes and its performance is four times better in terms of purity of the separated gas.
A very good development indeed! Not only is it more efficient than conventional plastic membranes, this material has huge potential to reduce the environmental footprint of water recycling and desalination. Source
