Drinking Water Is Obtained from Air by a Lightweight Nanomaterial (News of the day)
- katerinabiryukova
- Jul 14, 2025
- 2 min read
According to the United Nations, about 2.2 BILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE are in deficiency of safely managed drinking water. The Earth’s atmosphere, which holds approximately 13 million gigalitres of water, can be a valuable resource of fresh water – the challenge is its extraction.
An international collaboration of researchers, led by Professor Rakesh Joshi and Nobel Laurate Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov, had come up with new material that can tackle this problem with great efficiency.
The Magic of Water Bonding
Generally, water gets extracted by a material with good water absorption properties, meaning that the water gets bonded to the material’s surface. One key to effectual absorption is the formation of STRONG HYDROGEN BONDS with the absorbing material; the stronger the bonds, the more water is absorbed.
Two substances that are well-known for good water-absorbing properties are GRAPHENE OXIDE (a carbon-based material that is just one atom thick!) and CALCIUM. When the team merged the two via intercalation (inserting calcium ions into graphene oxide), they discovered that the result was MUCH MORE than the independent components could absorb combined!
A Tweak with Lightness
Moreover, the scientists also formed the calcium-intercalated graphene oxide into an AEROGEL, one of the lightest solid waters in the world! Since aerogels are filled with microscopic pores, hence having an extremely high surface area, the resultant material could absorb water at an even faster rate. “Sponge-like” properties of aerogels also simplified water release from the material.
Sustainability
This sole energy requirements of this system are to raise the temperature of the material to 50 degrees Celsius, “to release the water from the aerogel”, making it a sustainable solution to the global issue.
A Glimpse into the Future
Even though this discovery is fundamental and had even relied on simulations of the supercomputer at Australian National Computational Infrastructure to understand the molecular-level interactions, it still needs to be SCALED-UP tested TESTED under real-world conditions.
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