A scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has discovered an economical way to clean drinking water using tree bark.
One of the biggest problems the world faces today is a lack of clean drinking water in different parts of the world. Water.org reports that 3.4 million people die every year from water related diseases. Though different initiatives have been proposed to solve this problem, many are expensive and hard to manufacture. All of that could be changing with a new discovery by Rohit Karnik of MIT, a mechanical engineer who studies water technologies.
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NPR reports that Karnik has made a water filtration system using bark from a pine tree. The science behind it? Plants contain a tissue called xylem, which draws up and filters water through the leaves, removing bacteria. In the lab, Karnik used the xylem to cleanse bacteria-infected water. He estimates the xylem removed 99.9 percent of the bacteria.
The system would have to undergo a major rescaling in order to benefit the world's population, but Karnik says future research will be worth it because wood is a cheap material for water filtration.