Modern Water to contribute to cutting-edge graphene research with the Masdar Institute and the University of Manchester

Modern Water plc (AIM: MWG), the owner of world-leading technologies for water and wastewater treatment and for water quality monitoring, is pleased to announce that it has been chosen to contribute its design and development capabilities to a new research project run by the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Manchester. The research will examine the viability of using graphene to improve water desalination techniques and has been awarded US$ 500,000 funding from the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in partnership with the British Council. Modern Water will add its knowledge and expertise in water treatment and membrane design to the project. The research division of Veolia, the world-leading environmental services group, has also been selected to take part in the research. The aim of the project is to design and engineer nano-structures for graphene-based electrodes and membranes and look to develop systems for desalination and water purification applications. Emerging capacitive deionization and membrane-based desalination technology are believed to have the potential to help meet global water demands in a more energy-efficient manner. Integrating the nano-structured hierarchical graphene into the electrodes and membrane is hoped to overcome the limiting factors of conventional materials by lowering energy consumption, increasing water production efficiency and reducing membrane fouling. Dr Linda Zhou, professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the Masdar Institute, said: “[O]ur main objective is to develop a two-dimensional materials-based solutions for desalination and water purification in the form of a next-generation graphene-based electrodes and membranes. Our end goal is to transfer these research outcomes into water technologies so we can have a real-world impact on the global issue of water security.”