Clean water is one thing that everyone deserved to have; however, unfortunately, most developing countries do not have access to perfect clean water. The problem has become increasingly acute and it has to be solved soon. To give clean water to all the people living in developing countries, who cannot afford so much on water purification, scientists from College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University invented a process.
It is already known that a plant named Moringa oleifera has been used to purify water for many years now in many developing countries. But, there is a problem that has been confronting those who use that: the purified water will not stay purified for a longer time, its maximum stays as a clean water for only 24 hours, leaving people to drink the water on that day itself without being able to store it. So, scientists already know that seed from the plant do wonders when it comes to cleaning water in a lucrative way, leading a new invention.
An idea from Velegol, a professor at Penn State University, helped the team to combine the method of using the seed from the plant as well as with sand purification. F-sand, which is created by adhering seed protein into silica particles of sand, is the new invention that can be used by all people living in developing countries without any worry of money.
F-sand both kills microorganisms and reduces turbidity, adhering to particulate and organic matter. These undesirable contaminants and DOC can then be washed out, leaving the water clean for longer, and the f-sand ready for reuse.
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There were many questions relating to the invention which was answered by Tilton and Przybycien: The processes, such as fractionation, which can be defined as the separation of seed protein from the seed, is not necessarily an important step to perform because it gives very little effect on the overall purification, leaving people to perform the process more quickly with cost-effectiveness.
Moreover, fatty acids which are segregated and sold commercially is not influencing the overall purification levels, which is again a cost-effective thing. However, the main important item that has to be taken into consideration is “concentration”. Here, one has to make sure that there are enough positive charges proteins of the seed to overcome the silica's negatively charged ones, resulting in more positive charges because the positive charge has the potential to attract organic matter and unwanted particles.
This f-sand mechanism can also work in diverse conditions such as whether it is hard water or soft water, or in any climatic conditions, referring to as a flexible product. The scientists are hoping this will improve in such an extent that all the people in all developing countries will use the invention.