Grid computing helps with better water filtering

By using the World Computing Grid, a philanthropic initiative of IBM, researchers have unraveled how to filter water with carbon nanotubes. This is possible without significantly slowing down the water flow.

The Computing for Clean Water team discovered that water can flow through carbon nanotubes much more easily than previously thought. This may lead to more efficient filtering and desalination of water. The diameter of the carbon nanotubes is chosen in such a way that water molecules can pass through them, but much larger molecules cannot. The idea is not new, but it was suspected that the water flow would be slowed down to such an extent that the use of such a filter would not be practical.

Simulation and measurement were far apart and until now there was not enough computing power to simulate exactly what happens inside the carbon nanotubes. Through the simulations, the scientists found that in certain cases natural vibrations, or phonons, can cause a 300 percent increase in diffusion of the water through the carbon nanotubes compared to previous simulations. Since phonons occur naturally, no external energy source is required for this phenomenon.

The deeper insights into the phenomenon are not only useful for developing more efficient water filters, but also offer possibilities within the fields of microfluidics and transport of substances, such as drugs, through the cell walls of living cells.

The work of the Computing for Clean Water team has involved 150,000 volunteers who provide their computing power through the World Community Grid. The team’s research paper can be found in Nature Nanotechnology.