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September 20th, 2010

Tapping New Ideas to Make Water Drinkable

Abstract:
South African tap water is swimming with bugs, laden with pesticide residues and peppered with heavy metals.

So says Prof Eugene Cloete, dean of science at the University of Stellenbosch, who has fitted filters to the taps in his home and offers visitors to his office bottled mineral water. He constantly mulls over ways to tackle everyday problems. In this case, cutting-edge nanotechnology collided with a lowly pair of hair tongs and a tea bag filched from the science faculty boardroom.

As he watched a Stellenbosch student demonstrating how to spin nanofibres, filaments finer than a human hair, Cloete had one of those "aha" moments.

"I thought to myself, it would not be a bad idea to make our own membranes from nanofibres instead of purchasing a filter. And why not incorporate the enzymes into the fibres themselves?"

Source:
allafrica.com

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