Graphene

We’ve mentioned the wonders of graphene a number of times on this blog. Lockheed Martin is now trying to add another: large scale desalination of sea water. They are in the process of developing a prototype to produce drinking water from sea water using a graphene filter. From NBC News:

A defense contractor better known for building jet fighters and lethal missiles says it has found a way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater, potentially making it vastly cheaper to produce clean water at a time when scarcity has become a global security issue.

The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.

Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin — just one atom in thickness — it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.

The prototype is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Lockheed Martin hopes to be able to commercialize the product sometime in 2014 or 2015.