a new idea on removing the salt in sea water to make ... banner amman institute of technology,...

A New Idea on Removing the Salt in Sea Water

to Make Fresh Water Production Easier Using

Nano Graphene Pores

Darun S K Student, Banner Amman Institute of Technology,

[email protected]

Dr.D.Sharmila

Professor & HOD, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology,

[email protected]

Abstract—According to the countries in the world, water

supply shortages will affect billions of people by the middle

of this century. Desalination, basically removing the salt and

minerals out of seawater, is one way to provide potable

water in parts of the world where supplies are limited. The

problem with this technology is that it is expensive and uses

a lot of energy. Scientists are working toward better

processes where inexpensive fuels can heat and evaporate

the water before running it through membranes with

microscopic pores to increase efficiency. My idea is that

when( Nano Graphene Pores) When water molecules (red

and white) and sodium and chlorine ions (green and purple)

encounter a sheet of graphene (pale blue, centre) perforated

by holes of the right size, the water passes through, but the

sodium and chlorine of the salt are blocked. So by using my

idea we can get the pure water and block the unwanted sea

water. So by using this method the result achieved is that we

can convert the salt water into pure water by this method

easily instead of the Desalination method which are been

used in the several countries.

Index Terms—desalination, graphene, microscopic

I. INTRODUCTION TO GRAPHENE PORES

Graphene is a substance composed of pure carbon,

with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern

similar to graphite, but in a one-atom thick sheet. It is

very light, with a 1-square-meter sheet weighing only

0.77 milligrams. It is an allotrope of carbon whose

structure is a single planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon

atoms, which are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal

lattice. Graphene is most easily visualized as an atomic-

scale chicken wiremade of carbon atoms and their bonds.

The crystalline or "flake" form of graphite consists of

many graphene sheets stacked together. The carbon-

carbon bond length in graphene is about 0.142 nano

meters Graphene sheets stack to form graphite with an

inter planar spacing of 0.335 nm. It can also be

Manuscript received April 25, 2013; revised September 24, 2013

considered as an indefinitely large aromatic molecule, the

limiting case of the family of flat polycyclic aromatic

hydrocarbons. By these use of graphene pores in my

technology we can When water molecules (red and white)

and sodium and chlorine ions (green and purple)

encounter a sheet of graphene (pale blue, center)

perforated by holes of the right size, the water passes

through, but the sodium and chlorine of the salt are

blocked. So when the salt is being blocked over it we can

get the pure water through it. The main advantage is that

we can get the salt water converted into drinking water in

the low cost accordingly.

II. CURRENTLY USED DESALINATION METHODS

Seawater desalination is a process that removes salt

from water. While a swallow or two of salty water while

swimming in the ocean or Gulf isn't bad, humans cannot

survive on salt water. Desalination can create additional

sources for public water supply and help areas where the

groundwater aquifers are having trouble supplying all the

water that is needed. Even with seawater desalination we

still need to conserve water. Desalination can only meet a

small percentage of our water needs. The most common

process of desalination involves using high pressure to

force salty water through a semi-permeable membrane. A

membrane is made from material that allows liquid, but

not solids (like salt) to pass through it. After the water

has passed through the membrane, what is left is purified

water and a concentrated by product (salt). This process

is called reverse osmosis. Two drawbacks to desalination

have been the high cost of the energy needed to operate

the plants and the safe disposal of the plants highly

concentrated salt by-product. Researchers are finding

new ways to desalinate water with less energy and ways

to dilute the concentrated salt so it can be safely returned

to the body of water it came from and not harm marine

life. Desalination is one process that will help create an

additional source of public water supply and help keep

the groundwater aquifers from being drained dry. Using

reclaimed water (water which has received at least 2

International Journal of Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 1, No. 1 June 2013

24©2013 Engineering and Technology Publishingdoi: 10.12720/ijmse.1.1.24-27

treatments in a wastewater treatment plant) to water

lawns and landscapes, to cool power plants and to

recharge groundwater supplies will also help conserve

our natural water supply. Although it is often clean

enough to drink, reclaimed water is kept out of the public

water supply as that of Fig. 1.

Figure 1. Existing method-example

III. DRAWBACKS OF DESALINATION

Waste Disposal-As with any process, desalination has

by-products that must be taken care of. The process of

desalination requires pre-treatment and cleaning

chemicals, which are added to water before desalination

to make the treatment more efficient and successful.

These chemicals include chlorine, hydrochloric acid and

hydrogen peroxide, and they can be used for only a

limited amount of time as mentioned in Fig. 1. Once

they've lost their ability to clean the water, these

chemicals are dumped, which becomes a major

environmental concern. These chemicals often find their

way back into the ocean, where they poison plant and

animal life [1].

Brine-Brine is the side product of desalination. While

the purified water goes on to be processed and put into

human use, the water that is left over, which has a super

saturation of salt, must be disposed of. Most desalination

plants pump this brine back into the ocean, which

presents another environmental drawback. Ocean species

are not equipped to adjust to the immediate change in

salinity caused by the release of brine into the area. The

super-saturated salt water also decreases oxygen levels in

the water, causing animals and plants to suffocate [3], [4].

Ocean Populations-The organisms most commonly

affected by brine and chemical discharge from

desalination plants are plankton and phytoplankton,

which form the base of all marine life by forming the

base of the food chain. Desalination plants therefore have

the ability to negatively affect the population of animals

in the ocean. These effects are further developed through

the disadvantages caused by desalination "impingement"

and "entrainment." While sucking ocean water in for

desalination, the plants trap and kill animals, plants and

eggs, many of which belong to endangered species.

A. Health Concerns

Desalination is not a perfected technology, and

desalinated water can be harmful to human health as well.

By-products of the chemicals used in desalination can get

through into the "pure" water and endanger the people

who drink it. Desalinated water can also be acidic to both

pipes and digestive systems.

B. Energy Use

In an age where energy is becoming increasingly

precious, desalination plants have the disadvantage of

requiring large amounts of power. Other water treatment

technologies are more energy efficient.

IV. NANOPORES

A Nano pore is simply a small hole, of the order of 1

nanometer in internal diameter. Certain porous

transmembrane cellular proteins act as nanopores, and

nanopores have also been made by etching a somewhat

larger hole (several tens of nanometres) in a piece of

silicon, and then gradually filling it in using ion-beam

sculpting methods which results in a much smaller

diameter hole: the nanopores. Graphene is also being

explored as a synthetic substrate for solid-state nanopores.

The theory behind nanopore sequencing is that when a

nanopore is immersed in a conducting fluid and a

potential (voltage) is applied across it, an electric due to

conduction of ions through the nanopore can be observed

[8]. The amount of current is very sensitive to the size

and shape of the nanopore. If single nucleotides (bases),

strands of DNA or other molecules pass through or near

the nanopore, this can create a characteristic change in

the magnitude of the current through the nanopore. It is

as that of the image in Fig. 2.

Figure 2. Nano graphene pore layer


25©2013 Engineering and Technology Publishing

V. FLOWCHART AND BLOCK DIAGRAM

Figure 3. Block diagram of the whole process

VI. SHEET OF GRAPHENE

One-atom-thick sheets of carbon -- known as graphene

-- have a range of electronic properties that scientists are

investigating for potential use in novel devices.

Graphene's optical properties are also garnering attention.

Light squeezed between single graphene sheets can

propagate more efficiently than along a single sheet.

Wang notes this could have important applications in

optical-Nano focusing and in super lens imaging of Nano

scale objects. In conventional optical instruments, light

can be controlled only by structures that are about the

same scale as its wavelength, which for optical light is

much greater than the thickness of graphene. By utilizing

surface plasmons, which are collective movements of

electrons at the surface of electrical conductors such as

graphene? For small separations of around 20 nanometers,

they found that the surface plasmons in the graphene

sheets interacted such that they became 'coupled' (see

image). This theoretical coupling was very strong, unlike

that found in other materials, and greatly influenced the

propagation of light between the graphene sheets. The

researchers found, for instance, that optical losses were

reduced, so light could propagate for longer distances. In

addition, under a particular incoming angle for the light,

the study predicted that the refraction of the incoming

beam would go in the direction opposite to what is

normally observed. Such an unusual negative refraction

can lead to remarkable effects such as superlensing,

which allows imaging with almost limitless resolution.

As graphene is a semiconductor and not a metal, it

offers many more possibilities than most other plasmonic

devices.Its internal layer and external layer are been

given in the diagrams Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. "These graphene

sheet arrays may lead to dynamically controllable devices,

thanks to the easier tuning of graphene’s properties

through external stimuli such as electrical voltages."

Graphene also allows for an efficient coupling of the

Plasmon to other objects nearby, such as molecules that

are adsorbed on its surface.

Figure 4. Nano graphene sheet (external layer)

Figure 5. Nano Graphene Sheet (Internal layer)

VII. OPERATION DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SYSTEM

One common method of desalination, called reverse

osmosis, uses membranes to filter the salt from the water.

But these systems require extremely high pressure—and

hence, energy use—to force water through the thick

membranes, which are about a thousand times thicker

than graphene. The new graphene system operates at

much lower pressure, and thus could purify water at far

lower cost. While reverse osmosis has been used for

decades, adding that it’s very difficult to do experiments

at the scale of individual molecules and ions. But the new

graphene-based system, he says, works “hundreds of

times faster than current techniques, with the same

pressure”—or, alternatively, the system could run at

similar rates to present systems, but with lower

pressure.It is given in the Fig. 3. The key to the new

process is very precise control over the size of the holes

in the graphene sheet] so large that salt could pass

through and ones so small that water molecules would be

blocked. The ideal size is just about one nanometre, or

one billionth of a meter, he says. If the holes are just a bit

smaller—0.7 nanometres—the water won’t flow through

at all. Because graphene is the subject of research into

many different applications, there has been a great deal of

work on finding ways of making it inexpensively and in



large quantities [6]. And for desalination, because

graphene is such a strong material—pound for pound, it’s

the strongest material known—the membranes should be

more durable than those presently used for reverse

osmosis .Its separation and output is been given in Fig. 6.

Figure 6. After separating the other molecules and getting the pure

ones

VIII. CONCLUSION

Thus by my proposed method we can give the solution

to the water scarcity in the current world and also in the

upcoming Thus by my proposed method we can give the

solution to the water scarcity in the current world and

also in the upcoming years. The main thing is that we

have to inculcate several new ideas such as this to solve

the problems in the water scarcity all around the world. It

is also non pollutable technique where we can implement

it in all the forms and it does not affect the nature and

human of any kind. By this method we can also

implement the latest nano techniques to solve the water

problems in the world. It is also ales waste disposal one

and if it’s been implemented it can be the best technology

when compared to the other technologies in the present

scenario.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As an author I would like to thank Dr.D.Sharmila who

guided me throughout the research process regarding the

formation of this paper and also I would like to thank

Jagadeeshan and Kowshik who were the faculties who

helped me throughout my career. No words to thank my

parents and my dear brother standing behind my all

success throughout my life.

REFERENCES

[1] “Nucleotide identification and orientation discrimination of DNA

homopolymers immobilized in a protein nanopores,” Nano Letters, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 3029-3034.

[2] A. Heron and H. Bayley, "Multiple base-recognition sites in a

biological nanopore: Two heads are better than one," Angew. Chem. vol. 122, no. 3, pp. 566-569, 2010.

[3] M. Pavlenok, M. Niederweis, and J. Gundlach, "Nucleotide

discrimination with DNA immobilized in the MspA nanopore," 2011.

[4] H. Bayley,"Screening blockers against a potassium channel with a

droplet interface bilayer array," J. Am. Chem. Soc in this Journal, 2008.

[5] H. Bayley, "Continuous base identification for single-molecule

nanopore DNA sequencing," Nature Nanotechnology, 2009.

[6] D. Kozak, W. Anderson, M. F. Broom, R. Vogel, and M. Trau,

“Tunable nano/micropores for particle detection and

discrimination: Scanning ion occlusion spectroscopy,” Small, vol. 6, no. 23, pp. 2653–2658, 2010.

[7] M. F. Broom and G. B. Petersen, “Dynamically resizable

nanometre-scale apertures for molecular sensing," Sensors and Actuators.

[8] F. F. Lange and M. Metcalf, "Processing-related fracture origins:

II, agglomerate motion and cracklike Internal surfaces caused by differential sintering,” Journal of the American Ceramic Society,

1983.

[9] “Inhomogeneity effects in sintering," J. Am. Ceram. Soc., vol. 65, no. 10, pp. 497.

[10] G. M. Whitesides et al., "Molecular self-assembly and

nanochemistry: A chemical strategy for the synthesis of nanostructures," 1991.

Darun S K is currently pursuing his final year

Bachelors Of Engineering in the field of

Electronics and Instrumentation engineering in

the Bannari Amman Institute of Technology and

an intern in a reputed German MNC.He is a

currently doing his research papers in the field

of Embedded Systems and also has published the paper in

several international journals .He is an effective member in

organizations such as IEEE, ISTE, ISA and so on.

Sharmila D is currently a doctorate holder and

she is working as the Head of the Department in

Electronics and Instrumentation Department in

Bannari Amman Institute Of Technology. She

has published numerous Research papers in the

Several International Journals.



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