Carbon Nanotubes Could Filter Water More Efficiently and Cheaply: IBM

IBM using crowd sourced supercomputing power discovered that carbon nanotubes could filter water more efficiently and at a far lesser rate than commonly available methods used for water purification.

Findings of the research published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Monday, July 6th showed that how the tiny, hollow nanotubes could filter out impurities in water.

Earlier scientists thought that nanotube, which appears similar to the graphite in pencils, would slow down the flow of water at a level that it becomes effective filter.

The experiment led by the Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics (CNMM) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, showed that the natural, random thermal vibrations of the atoms in nanotubes actually reduce the friction because water and the tubes, enhancing the rate of water diffusion by more than 300 %.

As per reports, the crowd sourcing element came from the IBM World Community Grid. Volunteer in this used excess computing power on their home devices to boost IBM's processing power by creating the equivalent of a virtual supercomputer.

Prior simulations were unable to replicate the water flow rates that were needed to realistically experiment with this method of filtration.

More than 150,000 computer volunteers which globally created a network through which they were able to stimulate water flow in carbon nanotubes at very low speeds, were used in the research.

The computing power involved is the equivalent of up to 40,000 years of processing on a single PC, said researchers.

CNMM director Quanshui Zheng, said, "Prior to our project, simulations of water flow in carbon nanotubes could only be carried out under unrealistically high flow-rate conditions".