SUPER SAND

FOR BETTER PURIFICATION OF CONTAMINATED WATER

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water

Water problem has

been aggravated because of increase in population and the civic administration has hardly done anything to address the issue.

Slow sand method

Slow sand filters are used in water purification for

treating raw water to produce a potable product.

Slow sand filters work through the formation of a

gelatinous layer called the hypogeal layer in the top few millimetres of the fine sand layer.
As water passes through the hypogeal, particles of foreign

matter are trapped in the mucilaginous matrix and dissolved organic material is adsorbded and metabolised by the bacteria, fungi and protozoa.

Introduction
In many countries around the world, access to clean

drinking water and sanitation facilities is still limited.

The technology could help improve access to clean water

in developing countries.
Contaminated water can be cleaned much more

effectively using a novel, cheap material Super sand.

Introduction
The technology involves coating grains of sand in an

oxide of a widely available material called graphite commonly used as lead in pencils.
The graphite-coated sand grains might be a solution -

especially as people have already used sand to purify water since ancient times.
it could become a low-cost way to purify water in the

developing world.

Usage
It is generally used when water is contaminated with

pathogens, organic contaminants and heavy metal ions.

Production method.
Rice University scientists coated grains of sand with

graphite oxide (GO), a product in the chemical exfoliation process of graphite (aka pencil lead) that leads to singleatom sheets known as graphene via subsequent reduction. These nanosheets of carbon can be engineered to have either hydrophobic (water-hating) or hydrophilic (water-loving) properties, and when combined with sand, the coatings adhere to the grains and thus and exposure of the hydrophilic parts is ensured.

Coating the sand

The sand involves dispersing graphite oxide into water

and mixing it with regular sand. Then the whole mixture is heated up to 150C for a couple of hours to evaporate the water, and the final product i.e., coated sand is used to purify polluted water.

Cost-efficient
This can be synthesized using room temperature

processes and also from cheap graphite sources, it is likely to be cost-efficient.

Coated sand does good job of filtering out dyes and

heavy metals as activated carbon which are relatively expensive.

Activated Carbon

Graphite

Effectiveness
This material demonstrates comparable performance to

some commercially available activated carbon materials.

It is possible to modify the graphite oxide in order to

make it more selective and sensitive to certain pollutants such as organic contaminants or specific metals in dirty water.
By attaching different functional moieties onto graphite

oxide, we could engineer some form of a super sand to target specific contaminants species, like arsenic, trichloroethylene and others,

Advantages
Many mining companies extract graphite and they

produce a lot of graphite-rich waste.This waste can be harnessed for water purification.
The materials needed to make super sand, graphite and

regular sand, are inexpensive and readily available.

Another crucial advantage is that super sand can be

created around room temperatures

Advantages over slow sand

Sand alone cannot capture every bit of nastiness from

water that flows through it, and it can quickly become saturated with captured particles.
This super sand can deal with at least five times the

concentration of heavy metals or organic dye that pure sand can.

The nanoparticle coating creates an even more extensive

surface area, enhancing the sands ability to capture unwanted particles.

Disadvantages
Super sand generally do not employ chemical

pretreatment so source water must be of high quality.

Water to be treated must have low turbidity i.e. less than

5ntu.
Water to be treated should not have seasonal bloom of

algae.

Concluding remarks
In the future, it could do an even better job at targeting

dangerous particles: The next step for the super-sand creators is to create coatings that could specialize in capturing particular contaminants, like arsenic.
This Super Sand Makes Even Toxic Water Safe to Drink.
It has to be a national effort and everyone has to

contribute.

References
"Engineered Graphite Oxide Materials for Application in

Water Purification report in ACS Journal .

www.slowsandfilter.com

Thank you