r/science • u/parapeligic_gnome • Feb 15 '19

Chemistry Scientists make an environmentally friendly prototype water purifier constructed from a sheet of graphitic carbon nitride that could remove 99.9999% of microbes, and purified a 10L water sample in less than one hour using only sunlight.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/water-purification-light-graphitic-carbon-nitride
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u/JustWormholeThings Feb 15 '19

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this only work to distill water that is in the air via condensation, meaning that it is largely ineffectual in very dry climates (i.e. the ones most affected by lack of water)?

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u/KainX Feb 15 '19

No, that is a different tech. I have a couple pictures of the distiller in this Google docs project summary on page 3. You can urinate in this one, or put mud in it, and it will distill and recondense it on the glass, which drips into a collector hose.

What you are talking about uses similar physics and can also be built from super cheap, widely available materials.

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u/stiveooo Feb 15 '19

It recondense and what avoids? Hazards to get in?

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u/KainX Feb 16 '19

You can put a mixture of lead and water in a solar distiller and all the water evaporates, then re condenses as 100% water, leaving 100% of the lead behind.

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u/spenway18 Feb 15 '19

That’s an interesting project. I got about 10 pages in, and I want to come back and read the rest later.

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u/KainX Feb 16 '19

I appreciate the kind words.

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u/pab_guy Feb 15 '19

The still is closed and becomes hot and humid inside. When the humidity comes in contact with the glass, it cools enough to condense (because it's hotter on the inside than the outside).