Even today, clean water is a privilege for many people across the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 1.8 billion people consume water contaminated with faeces, and by 2040 a large portion of the world will endure water stress because of insufficient resources of drinking water.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimates that around 1,800 children die every day from diarrhoea because of unsafe water supply, which causes diseases such as cholera.
It has thus become imperative that efficient and cost-efficient ways to decontaminate water can be developed. With this need in mind, a team of scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), led by László Forró, has come up with a new water purification filter that combines titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanowires and carbon nanotubes powered by nothing more than sunlight.
The scientists have demonstrated that the TiO2 nanowires by themselves can efficiently...