'Super sand' purifies water

Australian researchers say ordinary sand, which is used to filter water in many parts of the world, can be converted into a " super sand " that is five times more efficient, according to UPI news agency.

Expert Mainak Majumder and colleagues at Monash University in Melbourne believe that the new materials they make can be a cheap gadget for developing countries, where more than 1 billion people lack drinking water.

New method will better disinfect drinking water (Photo: BBC)

According to the research team, sand has been used to filter water for over 6,000 years, and water purification by sand or gravel has been approved for use by the World Health Organization. However, Australian experts' research on a nanomaterial called graphite oxide suggests it could be used to improve sand filtration in a less expensive way.

Graphite coated sand grains have become ' super sand ', which can successfully refine mercury and other contaminants from the water. The researchers said that while sand is often saturated with mercury in less than 10 minutes of water purification, super sand can suck this heavy metal for more than 50 minutes.

' Super sand refining capacity is comparable to some of the activated carbon available on the market, ' the researchers wrote in a report published in the journal Applied Materials & Interfaces of the American Chemical Society.

Experts are now working on ways to further improve the water purification efficiency of super sand, according to Eurekalert.