I know what you’re thinking: what is so important about 3D printing Graphene that this guy made a blog about it. So first off, let’s just go through why Graphene is useful for water purification.
Graphene is an allotrope of Carbon that consists of a single two dimensional layer of Carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb shaped lattice. If this reminds you of Graphite, it’s because it’s essentially a single layer of graphite with stronger bonds that can flex. It’s graphite, now better
Image of Graphene (credit to moneyweek.com)
Graphene as a Purifier
Back to the point. Graphene is useful as a purifier both as a photocatalyst and an adsorbent.
Photocatalyst: A photocatalyst is a catalyst that absorbs light and provides energy to speed up the reaction. Graphene helps decompose organic contaminants. Graphene is useful as a photocatalyst, mostly because it doesn’t let the substance recombine after and is also very efficient.
Adsorbent: Adsorption is the process by which solute particles like impurities in water stick to an adsorbent and form a thin film over its surface. Graphene in Aerogel form here is very useful for this.
Graphene as a purifier is very useful not only because it’s environmentally friendly, it’s also highly durable and efficient. After running organic solvents through it 10 times, researchers reported 100% efficiency, showing it’s durability. Graphene is also useful in capturing heavy metals like lead which are highly toxic.
But graphene still hasn't been adopted widely, mostly because of its high production and development costs. This is what the Researchers at University of Buffalo hope to solve with their new discovery.
What the researchers at Buffalo University did
The researchers at buffalo university developed a way to scalably 3D print Graphene and by extension it’s aerogel.
This solves the largest problems graphene had faced trying to become widely adopted: Cost and Scalability. This is achieved by 3D printing with a graphene based ink mixed with bio inspired polymers as the University of Buffalo reported.
Conclusion
This new method may even be used in the production of other Aerogels which have been highly useful in areas like fireproofing and waterproofing agents and thermal insulators and more directly bring a new wave of water purifying technologies installed in our houses very soon.
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