Egg whites can be transformed into a material to filtering microplastics from seawater
Researchers at Princeton Engineering have developed a new type of inexpensive material that can remove salt and microplastics from seawater.
Researchers have used eggs to create an aerogel, which is a light, strong, porous material that can be used in many types of applications
The Susan Dod Brown Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton is working in lab to create new materials, including aerogels, for engineering applications.
Frozen-dried egg white is a complex system of almost pure protein that, when heated to 900 degrees Celsius, creates a structure of interconnected strands of carbon fibers and sheets of graphene.
Scientists in China have found a new way to remove salts and microplastics from seawater. With this new method, the material is efficient at removing both types of pollutants with more than 95% efficiency.
The eggs even worked if they were fried on the stove first, or whipped," said Sehmus Ozden. "We found that eggs can withstand pretty much any cooking method.
While regular store-bought egg whites were used in initial tests, Ozden said, other similar commercially available proteins produced the same results.
"Eggs are cool because we can all connect to them and they are easy to get. But you want to be careful about competing against the food cycle.
they succeed at refining the fabrication process so it can be used in water purification on a larger scale.
Activated carbon is one of the cheapest materials used for water purification.
Compared with reverse osmosis, which requires significant energy input and waste water for operation, this filter uses only gravity to operate and produces no waste water.