New polymer material offers possibility of cheap, clean drinking water for heavily polluted areas

Achieving affordable clean drinking water for households in polluted areas could be a step closer after Chinese scientists developed a polymer material that can filter three major pollutants – heavy metals, dye and oils – efficiently and cheaply.

In a paper in the latest issue of Scientific Reports, professor Deng Weiqiao and colleagues detailed the capabilities of the material, called perfluorous conjugated microporous polymer, one gram of which can absorb more than 800 micrograms of lead ions.

The same amount of active carbon, the most common material used in family drinking water machines, could remove less than 22 micrograms.

“All other chemical absorbing materials were developed to deal with specific polluting scenarios, such as oil spills. None of them could remove all the three major types of pollutants simultaneously, making it difficult to guarantee drinking water safety in areas with multiple sources of pollutions,” said Deng, researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in Liaoning province.

“Our material may find its biggest application in household water filters. Not only does its performance far exceed any material on the market today, but the polymer is reusable. Just bathe it in alcohol and all the pollutants will be removed and it can be reused.”

The polymer’s pollutant absorption capability came from its unique physical structure, according to the paper.