Scientists from Brown University have discovered a method of water filtration that uses layers of graphene nanomaterials.

The method is focused on the fact that upon orienting the gaps of two-dimensional sheets of graphene, nanochannels are made, effectively filtering liquids such as water. Robert Hurt, the professor and co-author of the research expresses the fact that this field of research is new and growing fast, pointing towards “[the] emerging field of nanofluidics where you’re using those channels to filter out some molecules while letting others go through.”

This process is still however in it’s infancy, with some problems yet to be solved, such as issues involving the vertical orientation of the nanochannels. However, there is progress being made very actively, shown by Muchun Liu, a former researcher in Hurt’s lab has already discovered a solution to this problem, involving elastic substrate to stretch the channels out.

Altogether, these fields of science are new but growing rapidly, with new discoveries emerging quickly and with great implications.

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