SciTech Now takes you inside the lab where two University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) professors have created a light-activated nanomaterial that can purify water, essentially doing the work of a water treatment plant on a small scale.
Heather Shipley, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Burzik Professor in Engineering Design at UTSA, and Kelly Nash, associate professor of physics, have received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a nanomaterial that can help tackle the global water crises. They are working alongside a team of UTSA graduate students on creating an entirely new material activated by sunlight, causing organic and heavy metal pollutants to dissolve.
“We’re working to create a nanocomposite material to treat pollutants in water,” Shipley said. “This could be used for in-home water treatment, or it could be used in developing countries where the infrastructure for water treatment plants might not exist.”
Learn more in this episode of SciTech Now airing Friday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m. on KLRN.