Ilaria Rosella Pagliaro Pesticides and desalination: technological innovations promise to guarantee safe and sustainable water: collaboration between Chinese and Australian researchers offers effective solutions to address the global water emergency
©UniSA
Recent water purification and desalination methods are advancing and thus giving real hope to billions of people throughout the world. In this respect, a team of researchers from China in collaboration with the University of South Australia is striving to solve two major problems: the removal of pesticides from water and the desalination of seawater. The results from this research could revolutionize safe and sustainable access to drinking water-one of the world’s high-priority crises.
Pesticides in Water: A Growing Threat to Public Health
The use of pesticides has increased by 62% over the last twenty years, which has had a terrible impact on water reserves all over the world. Residues of pesticides pose a serious health risk, with diseases like cancer and other chronic diseases being associated with them. However, existing methods for pesticide removal from water are often inefficient and inadequate; thus, new technologies are imperative.
A major breakthrough emerged from the study jointly done between Australia and China, where the scientists demonstrated the efficient removal of pesticides at cost-effective measures using PAC. The study led by Mill and Zhang has been able to evidence that this greatly reduces pesticide concentration in water for safer drinking among humans.
Further improvements by the team led by Liang et al. have optimized the technique to reduce PAC particle size from 38 microns to 6 microns, which cuts down the PAC consumption by 75%. These new developments will not only make this process economic but also highly efficient in completely removing pesticides without leaving behind toxic residues in water. A similar method might also be applied to other toxic agents, such as PFAS and PFCs, found in everyday products in high numbers and known for high levels of pollution.
Making desalination more sustainable with an innovative system
Desalination, or the process of making seawater potable, has become an essential solution to balance the ever-increasing problem of lack of water. However, most methods applied up to now are costly, extremely energy intensive, and destructive to the environment. A team of Chinese and Australian researchers has announced a novel desalination procedure using clay-based minerals and powered by solar energy.
This approach leverages clay minerals to accelerate evaporation rates, significantly reducing energy consumption and minimizing environmental impact. If implemented on a large scale, this technology could provide clean drinking water to billions of people, making desalination a more accessible and sustainable solution.
Despite its potential, current desalination infrastructure is highly power-consuming and produces extremely toxic brine in huge volumes, with the subsequent danger of marine ecosystems, while being dependent on sources of non-renewable energy. Its adoption could be the game-changer, with increased efficiency at less environmental hurt.
International collaboration-the path to secure water future
These findings represent a critical leap forward in increasing the supply of clean drinking water across the world. If contamination from pesticides is minimized and desalination optimized, safe water can be ensured for millions of people to meet the increasing demand due to population growth and industrialization.
According to UNICEF, every year 4 billion people have no access to safe drinking water, and half of the world’s population lives under conditions of chronic water shortages. These numbers frame the relevance of innovative solutions developed by Chinese and Australian researchers. Again, international cooperation became the key for solving complex global problems and continued scientific progress.
Source: UniSA
