Record low major rivers and lakes of summer 2026 news (Danube river, Rhine river, Lake Mead and so on)

There has been quite a bit news reporting about receding waterways and lakes/reservoirs etc. lately this summer 2026.

Take it as largely alarmism and hysteria or journalistic sensationalism. How lazy are journalists?

Some questions to ask about it:

1. How much of this decline is due to human diversion of water for drinking, agriculture, industry etc.?
2. How much of this decline is due to seasonal variation, other natural phenomenons, urbanization, population growth and how much due to climate change?
3. How fast and how much will these declines be reversed in coming months?
4. Are there other major rivers and lakes not affected by decline? Which ones and why? I bet there such rivers and lakes around the world.

Across Africa’s Sahel region, groundwater reserves are recovering after decades of drought.

Good news! Global warming/climate change is not all bad! 😊

"... Aquifer reserves across Niger have risen by an estimated 15 percent, while Lake Chad reached more than 9,000 square miles in 2024, around 10 times its size in the mid-1980s.

One major reason is that rising temperatures in the North Atlantic have pulled the West African monsoon farther north, bringing more rainfall to the Sahel."

Doomslayer: Progress Roundup - by Malcolm Cochran

After Decades of Drought, Water Is Rising in the African Sahel

After Decades of Drought, Water Is Rising in the African Sahel "Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alone cannot explain the groundwater revival, say hydrologists, who believe efforts to harvest rainfall may also be paying dividends."

Nanoconfined water shows 10,000-fold conductivity increase in nanoscale channels

Amazing stuff! 

We still do not even understand the wonders of water very well! This is one of the reasons why global warming/climate change is a hoax!

"Water confined in nanoscale channels has dramatically different electrical properties from bulk water, researchers ... have demonstrated. The differences, which include up to 10,000-fold greater conductivity along the channel, are thought to arise from alterations to the hydrogen-bonded network in this quasi-2D environment. The findings could have a significant impact on scientists’ understanding of biochemical processes. ..."

"Researchers ... have made an unexpected discovery about one of the world's most familiar substances – water. When confined to spaces a few atoms thick, water transforms into something completely unfamiliar, exhibiting properties more commonly associated with advanced materials like ferroelectrics and superionic liquids. ...

"Think of it as if water has a split personality," ... "In one direction it is electrically dead, but look at it in profile and suddenly it becomes electrically super-active. Nobody expected such dramatic behaviour." ...

The research also reveals that confined water exists in two distinct electrical regimes. For channels larger than several nanometres, water behaves like its bulk form, albeit with much higher conductivity. But once squeezed to atomic dimensions, it undergoes a sharp transition into a new "superionic-like" state.

This transformation occurs because extreme confinement disrupts water's hydrogen-bond network, which in bulk is a dynamic but rather ordered structure. At the molecular scale this network becomes disordered, allowing dipoles to align more easily with electric fields and enabling rapid proton transport.

"Just as graphene revealed unexpected physics when graphite was thinned down to a single atomic layer, this research shows that even water – the most studied liquid on Earth – can still surprise us when squeezed to its absolute thinnest” ..."

From the abstract:

"Water is essential for almost every aspect of life on our planet and, unsurprisingly, its properties have been studied in great detail1. However, disproportionately little remains known about the electrical properties of interfacial and strongly confined water, in which the structure deviates from that of bulk water, becoming distinctly layered. The structural change is expected to affect the conductivity of water and particularly its polarizability, which in turn modifies intermolecular forces that play a crucial role in many physical and chemical processes.

Here we use scanning dielectric microscopy (SDM)10 to probe the in-plane electrical properties of water confined between atomically flat surfaces separated by distances down to 1 nm. For confinement exceeding several nanometres, water exhibits an in-plane dielectric constant close to that of bulk water and its proton conductivity is notably enhanced, gradually increasing with decreasing water thickness.

This trend abruptly changes when the confined water becomes only a few molecules thick.

Its in-plane dielectric constant reaches large, ferroelectric-like values of about 1,000, whereas the conductivity peaks at several S m−1, close to values characteristic of superionic liquids.

We attribute the enhancement to strongly disordered hydrogen bonding induced by the few-layer confinement, which facilitates both easier in-plane polarization of molecular dipoles and faster proton exchange. This insight into the electrical properties of nanoconfined water is important for understanding many phenomena that occur at aqueous interfaces and in nanoscale pores."

Nanoconfined water shows 10,000-fold conductivity increase in nanoscale channels | Chemistry World "Network of quasi-2D hydrogen bonding may be responsible for effect"

Water reveals superpowers hidden at the nanoscale (original news release) "New research shows water's dramatic electrical transformation when squeezed to just a few molecular layers thick."

In-plane dielectric constant and conductivity of confined water (open access)

Fig. 1: Broadband dielectric imaging of nanoconfined water.

Fig. 3: In-plane electrical properties of water under molecular-scale confinement.

Nobel Prize Winner Omar Yaghi Buoys Startup Atoco Creating Water From Air

This article is about atmospheric water harvesting. What might be the negative consequences of this technology when applied at large scale? Drier air, weather effects etc.

Maybe sometimes don't mix science and business?

By the way, the comparison with a data center water consumption (see below) is most likely ridiculous, because many data centers probably use a closed system for water.

"... Atoco plans to demonstrate a prototype capable of producing 200 liters (53 gallons) of water a day this quarter. The commercial version will be the size of a shipping container and can generate 1,000 liters of water daily. (A typical data center consumes 2 million liters a day.) ..."

Nobel Prize Win Buoys Irvine Startup Creating Water From Air - Bloomberg "A startup founded by a Nobel laureate is targeting data centers in water-stressed regions as customers for its technology."

Credits: Human Progress weekly newsletter

Nearly a third of antibiotics consumed by people end up in surface waters worldwide. Really!

I would say it has been repeatedly reported for over 50 years that antibiotics end up in rivers or lakes etc. What is the point! This seems to be a piece of junk science!

Also one of those never dying and often repeated narratives!

This study is based on computer modeling! Junk model? Garbage in, garbage out?

Lots of estimates and thresholds! How relevant are these thresholds?

What do the authors mean by "human consumption alone represents a significant risk for rivers across all continents"? So should we not consume antibiotics anymore?

It is odd that the authors did not bother to mention wastewater treatment in the abstract nor in the significance chapter. This is shoddy science!

Caveat: I did not read the study!

"Nearly a third of antibiotics consumed by people end up in rivers, per a PNAS modeling study from McGill University and One Health Trust researchers that estimates the distribution of chemical pollutants from untreated wastewater and wastewater treatment plants."

"... Much of the focus has been on the antibiotic manufacturing process, which is known to release antibiotic-laced wastewater directly into nearby waterways. That has resulted in efforts to monitor and limit pollution from antibiotic manufacturing sites.

But since antibiotics consumed by people aren't fully metabolized, wastewaters from households and hospitals are also potential sources of antibiotic contamination. And while wastewater treatment plants can remove some antibiotic residues before the treated water is released into surface waters, they can't remove all of them [???]. ...

The researchers also estimated that 750 million people—roughly 10% of the global population—are exposed [???] to the top 1% of surface waters with the highest cumulative concentrations of antibiotics. ...

The authors say the findings suggest an "urgent need" [???] for further research on the environmental fate and impact of the antibiotics that their model predicts are most prevalent in surface waters, particularly those that pose a high potential risk to aquatic ecosystems and human health. ..."

From the abstract:

"The presence of antibiotics in surface waters poses risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health due to their toxicity and influence on antimicrobial resistance. After human consumption and partial metabolism, antibiotic residues are excreted and undergo complex accumulation and decay processes along their pathway from wastewater to natural river systems.

Here, we use a global contaminant fate model to estimate that of

the annual human consumption of the 40 most used antibiotics (29,200 tonnes), 

8,500 tonnes (29%) are released into the river system and 

3,300 tonnes (11%) reach the world's oceans or inland sinks.

Even when only domestic sources are considered (i.e. not including veterinary or industrial sources),

we estimate that 6 million km of rivers worldwide are subject to total antibiotic concentrations in excess of thresholds that are protective of ecosystems and resistance promotion during low streamflow conditions, 

with the dominant contributors being amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, and cefixime. Therefore, it is of concern that human consumption alone represents a significant risk for rivers across all continents, with the largest extents found in Southeast Asia. Global antibiotic consumption has grown rapidly over the last 15 years and continues to increase, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, requiring new strategies to safeguard water quality and protect human and ecosystem health."

"Significance Statement

Antibiotic contamination in global rivers poses significant threats to aquatic ecosystems and human health. Our model predicts that 8,500 tonnes of antibiotics enter river systems annually from domestic consumption alone, causing elevated concentrations of various antibiotics in rivers across all continents. For example, estimated concentrations of antibiotics in 6 million km of rivers worldwide exceed thresholds that are protective of ecosystems and/or resistance promotion, with the most impacted regions located in Southeast Asia. As global antibiotic consumption rises, especially in low- and middle-income countries, these findings underscore the urgent need for the development and implementation of strategies to minimize antibiotic pollution and safeguard environmental and human health."

Global Health NOW: Global Vaccinations in Jeopardy; Kenya’s Push to Improve HIV Testing During Pregnancy; and Run, Run, Robots!

Antibiotic residues prevalent in rivers globally, study reveals

Antibiotics in the global river system arising from human consumption (open access)

Fig. 1 Contaminant pathways of antibiotics in the global aquatic environment. Modeled contaminant pathways and mass balances of antibiotics by path. Values in parentheses indicate total amounts of the top 40 antibiotics consumed worldwide in tonnes year−1; percentage values are relative to the total excretion amount (20,500 tonnes year−1).

On strongly hydrogen-bonded water wires in water and ice

Amazing stuff! Water is still a mysterious substance!

"A hydrogen bond is an electrostatic attraction between molecules, mediated by a positively charged hydrogen atom. This relatively weak bond—first theoretically described in 1920 —is the fundamental binding force in water, explaining many of this liquid’s unique properties, such as its high surface tension and unique attributes as a solvent.

Within the hydrogen-bonded network connecting H2O molecules in water and ice, stronger hydrogen bonds can form short-lived chains, called water wires, but the effect of these linear structures is still debated.

Molecular simulations suggest that water wires provide important pathways for proton transfer, but direct observational evidence has been lacking. 

[Researchers] propose a way to measure the presence of water wires ... Through rigorous electronic-structure calculations and molecular-dynamics simulations, the researchers show that elusive water wires can be detected in bulk water and ice by measuring light absorption in the UV-to-visible range. The technique could be used to study how water-wire behavior changes under different spatial and thermal conditions. ..."

From the abstract:

"Water wires, quasi-one-dimensional chains composed of hydrogen-bonded (H-bonded) water molecules, play a fundamental role in numerous chemical, physical, and physiological processes. Yet direct experimental detection of water wires has been elusive so far. Based on advanced ab initio many-body theory that includes electron-hole interactions, we report that optical absorption spectroscopy can serve as a sensitive probe of water wires and their ordering.

In both liquid and solid water, the main peak of the spectrum is discovered to be a charge-transfer exciton.

In water, the charge-transfer exciton is strongly coupled to the H-bonding environment where the exciton is excited between H-bonded water molecules with a large spectral intensity.

In regular ice, the spectral weight of the charge-transfer exciton is enhanced by a collective excitation occurring on proton-ordered water wires, whose spectral intensity scales with the ordering length of water wire. The spectral intensity and excitonic interaction strength reaches its maximum in ice XI, where the long-range ordering length yields the most pronounced spectral signal.

Our findings suggest that water wires, which widely exist in important physiological and biological systems and other phases of ice, can be directly probed by this approach."

Physics - Shedding Light on Water Wires "Computational spectroscopy reveals a possible signature of strongly hydrogen-bonded wires in water and ice."

Optical Absorption Spectroscopy Probes Water Wire and Its Ordering in a Hydrogen-Bond Network (open access)

Mystery tap water chemical finally discovered after 40 years, toxicity unknown, a by-product of a disinfectant

Concerning! What is in your tap water? 

Is not tap water one of the most analyzed and monitored substances (besides blood)  in the world?

If it is any consolation, the average concentration of this chemical is only 23 micrograms per liter.

"After eluding chemists for 40 years, a mystery compound found in drinking water has finally been identified.

The compound – called chloronitramide anion – is previously unknown to science. ...

The mystery molecule has a very simple structure, by chemical standards: Cl-N-NO2–. ...

The researchers identified it in 40 samples of tap water from the USA, at an average concentration of 23 micrograms, or 0.00023 grams, per litre. ..."

From the perspective abstract:

"Chemical disinfection of public water supplies is one of the 20th century’s greatest public health achievements. In industrialized countries, serious waterborne illness, once a common way to die, is now rare. Inorganic chloramines (primarily NH2Cl and NHCl2) are chlorine-based disinfectants widely used in the US to disinfect water. This group of chemical compounds has weaker disinfection capability than chlorine (1) but produces lower concentrations of harmful halogenated disinfection by-products (2). However, chloramines, unlike chlorine, spontaneously decompose over timescales relevant to water distribution systems. For decades, one of the chloramine decomposition products remained uncharacterized, referred to simply as an “unidentified product” that had eluded the best efforts of chemists until now. ... Fairey et al. report that the mysterious product of chloramine decomposition is chloronitramide anion, a surprisingly stable and potentially toxic compound."

From the editor's note and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Municipal drinking water in the US is often treated with chloramines to prevent the growth of harmful microorganisms, but these molecules can also react with organic and inorganic dissolved compounds to form disinfection by-products that are potentially toxic. Fairey et al. studied a previously known but uncharacterized product of mono- and dichloramine decomposition and identified it as the chloronitroamide anion ... This anion was detected in 40 drinking water samples from 10 US drinking water systems using chloramines, but not from ultrapure water or drinking water treated without chlorine-based disinfectants. Although toxicity is not currently known, the prevalence of this by-product and its similarity to other toxic molecules is concerning. ...

Abstract

Inorganic chloramines are commonly used drinking water disinfectants intended to safeguard public health and curb regulated disinfection by-product formation. However, inorganic chloramines themselves produce by-products that are poorly characterized. We report chloronitramide anion (Cl–N–NO2−) as a previously unidentified end product of inorganic chloramine decomposition. Analysis of chloraminated US drinking waters found Cl–N–NO2− in all samples tested (n = 40), with a median concentration of 23 micrograms per liter and first and third quartiles of 1.3 and 92 micrograms per liter, respectively. Cl–N–NO2− warrants occurrence and toxicity studies in chloraminated water systems that serve more than 113 million people in the US alone."

Mystery tap water substance finally discovered, concerning scientists

Researchers Identify Previously Unknown Compound in Drinking Water (original news release)

The chloramine dilemma "A decades-long drinking-water disinfection mystery ends with a potentially toxic surprise"

Chloronitramide anion is a decomposition product of inorganic chloramines (no public access)

Source

The first author of the paper Julian Fairey

Water frost equal to "60 Olympic-size swimming pools" discovered on Mars equator

Amazing stuff! It is very odd that this news media does not mention who or what made the discovery.

Prediction of the existence of a stable new form of water: H4⁢O2+ or Aquodiium

Amazing stuff! Exotic!

We still do not even understand water! However, we are inundated on a daily basis with the Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion!

The Russian-Chinese cooperation in science seems to work well despite the Russo-Ukrainian war.

"... Scientists have discovered the potential existence of a bizarre new molecule related to water. Dubbed “aquodiium,” this ion could form under extreme conditions and may explain some of the weirdness of our solar system’s ice giant planets. ..."

"Skoltech scientists and their Chinese colleagues have determined the conditions that enable the existence of a very peculiar ion. Dubbed aquodiium, it can be conceptualized as an ordinary neutral molecule of water with two additional protons stuck to it, resulting in a net double positive charge. The team suggests that the ion could be stable in the interior of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, and if so, it must play a part in the mechanism that gives rise to these planets’ unusual magnetic fields.

From the abstract:

"Aquodiium (H4⁢O2+), an isoelectronic analog of the ammonium ion (NH+

4), can theoretically be formed by combining a molecule of water (H2⁢O) with two protons. However, stable aquodiium has never been reported because of the high energy cost during the second protonation after hydronium (H3⁢O+). Here, by performing ab initio evolutionary structure searches combined with first-principles calculations, stable ionic phases, H4⁢O⁢F2 and H4⁢O⁢F2·HF, were predicted to be thermodynamically stable at high pressure. Analysis of bond lengths and electron density supports the formation of aquodiium under pressure in these two phases. Moreover, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal that these ionic phases will enter the superionic states at lower temperatures compared to water ice. For H4⁢O⁢F2·HF, there is a plastic phase region where aquodiium ions exhibit free rotation. All aquodiium ions are fully preserved below 1000 K in these ionic phases, while after entering the diffusion state, only the H4⁢O⁢F2 phase keeps H4⁢O2+ ions. Our results suggest that pressure stabilizes the H4⁢O2+ ion, presenting an important addition to traditional physical and chemical theories such as the valence shell electron pair repulsion model, proton transfer, and acid-base theory."

Alien ion of water may explain why Uranus is so weird

Outlandish molecule suggested to lurk inside Uranus and Neptune, affecting their magnetic fields (original news release)

H4⁢O2+ ion stabilized by pressure (no public access)

Novel filter may speed wastewater cleanup

Good news!

"... A new membrane could provide help, by dramatically improving a water filtering technology already used to clean up pollution from industrial sources and farms, researchers reported last week in Nature Sustainability. If they can be scaled up and commercialized, the authors argue, the new filters could sharply reduce the cost of turning wastewater into safe drinking water. ...

One option for cleaning up this wastewater is using “nanofiltration” membranes, which feature plastic films shot through with holes roughly 1 nanometer across to filter out pollutants such as organic compounds, metals, and microbes. (Desalination plants use even more finely perforated “reverse osmosis” membranes, with holes 0.1 nanometer across, to filter out dissolved salts.)

The sale of nanofiltration membranes is already a $1 billion business annually, according to the market research firm MarketsandMarkets. But a challenge for manufacturers has been controlling the range of pore sizes, which limits the membranes’ ability to exclude some contaminants ...

Now, ...  have come up with a way to make membranes with consistent 1-nanometer pores. The researchers started with two polymer building blocks: long, polelike molecules and short, connecting segments. When placed in solution with a porous plastic film, the poles and connector segments lined up on the film. The connectors bonded to specific sites on the poles, creating a sheet with ring-shaped voids, a bit like a chain-link fence. Stacking numerous sheets, the researchers formed a solid membrane. ..."

From the abstract:

"Membrane nanofiltration is widely used in various chemical separation and water purification processes. However, obtaining high water permeance and high solute removal selectivity for achieving energetically efficient precise separation in nanofiltration membranes remains challenging due to their inherent pore heterogeneity. Here we introduce a cinnamate-mediated polymerization method to fabricate nanofiltration membranes with highly homogenized and well-tailored nanopores to address this challenge. Our experimental data and molecular dynamics simulation results show that cinnamate-mediated polymerization can manipulate monomer diffusion and intermolecular void size to create a homogenized and tailored selective layer in a highly homogenized membrane. The obtained membrane exhibited a high water permeance of 104.3 l m−2 h−1 bar−1, which is substantially higher than that of the pristine membrane synthesized without cinnamate mediation, superior molecular sieving ability, excellent salt/dye separation factor and good operational stability, outperforming state-of-the-art membranes. Overall, this work enables the design and fabrication of nanofiltration membranes that combine other mutually exclusive properties for energetically efficient water purification applications towards a sustainable water–energy nexus."

Novel filter may speed wastewater cleanup | Science | AAAS

Polymeric membranes with highly homogenized nanopores for ultrafast water purification (no public access)

How light can vaporize water without the need for heat

Amazing stuff! This is a huge discovery!

"... What the MIT team discovered is that light in the visible spectrum is enough to knock water molecules loose at the surface where it meets air and send them floating away. In other words, while it's true that evaporation has been happening all of these years due to fluctuations in temperature, water has also been turning to vapor from the force of light beams alone.

The scientists have termed the process the "photomolecular effect" after the photoelectric effect that was explained by Einstein in 1905, in which particles of light could free electrons from atoms in the material they strike. ...

“It could help us gain new understanding of how sunlight interacts with cloud, fog, oceans, and other natural water bodies to affect weather and climate," ... "It has significant potential practical applications such as high-performance water desalination driven by solar energy. This research is among the rare group of truly revolutionary discoveries  ...
Because the discovery of light-based evaporation was so striking, the MIT researchers carried out 14 different verification experiments that all supported the finding. During the course of this process using laser light they found that the strongest evaporative effects happened when light that was polarized in a particular way known as transverse magnetic polarization hit the surface of the water at a 45° angle. It was also strongest with green light ..."

"... The new work builds on research reported last year, which described this new “photomolecular effect” but only under very specialized conditions: on the surface of specially prepared hydrogels soaked with water. In the new study, the researchers demonstrate that the hydrogel is not necessary for the process; it occurs at any water surface exposed to light, whether it’s a flat surface like a body of water or a curved surface like a droplet of cloud vapor. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

We use 14 different experiments to demonstrate the existence of the photomolecular effect: photons in the visible spectrum cleave off water clusters from air–water interfaces. We use laser to study single air–water interfaces and show polarization, angle of incidence, and wavelength dependent responses, peaking at green where bulk water does not absorb. Raman and infrared absorption spectra and temperature distribution in air show the existence of water clusters under light. We suggest the photomolecular effect provides a mechanism to resolve the long-standing puzzle of larger measured solar absorptance of clouds than theoretical predictions based on bulk water optical constants and demonstrate that visible light can heat up clouds. Our work suggests that photomolecular evaporation is prevalent in nature.

Abstract

Although water is almost transparent to visible light, we demonstrate that the air–water interface interacts strongly with visible light via what we hypothesize as the photomolecular effect. In this effect, transverse-magnetic polarized photons cleave off water clusters from the air–water interface. We use 14 different experiments to demonstrate the existence of this effect and its dependence on the wavelength, incident angle, and polarization of visible light. We further demonstrate that visible light heats up thin fogs, suggesting that this process can impact weather, climate, and the earth’s water cycle and that it provides a mechanism to resolve the long-standing puzzle of larger measured clouds absorption to solar radiation than theory could predict based on bulk water optical constants. Our study suggests that the photomolecular effect should happen widely in nature, from clouds to fogs, ocean to soil surfaces, and plant transpiration and can also lead to applications in energy and clean water."

Think you understand evaporation? Think again, says MIT

How light can vaporize water without the need for heat Surprising “photomolecular effect” discovered by MIT researchers could affect calculations of climate change and may lead to improved desalination and drying processes.

Photomolecular effect: Visible light interaction with air–water interface (no public access)

The team used a lab device that beamed laser light at water to observe the evaporative effects of light

Greater access to clean water by desalination, thanks to a better membrane

Good news! Desalination is salvation!

"... With an innovative material design, the Yale and Nanjing researchers have developed a reverse osmosis membrane that not only desalinates water but is also resistant to chlorine as well as fouling. Rather than using the industry gold standard of polyamide to develop these membranes, the researchers instead used polyester.  The choice of material is critical, as this polyester membrane allows for substantial water permeability, has a high rejection for sodium chloride and boron, and a complete resistance toward chlorine. The ultrasmooth, low-energy surface of the membrane also outdoes polyamide membranes in preventing fouling and mineral scaling.

Further, the team designed the membranes so that they could be easily adopted by the industry. ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Reverse osmosis membranes have been dominated by polyamide chemistry, which has sufficient performance in terms of water permeability and salt rejection but is vulnerable to degradation in the presence of chlorine or other strong oxidants. Polyesters are not typically used for water filtration membranes because they suffer from hydrolytic degradation when immersed in aqueous solution. Yao et al. show that the polymerization of 3,5-dihydroxy-4-methylbenzoic acid with trimesoyl chloride yields a polymer membrane with impressive resistance to hydrolytic degradation in acidic or basic conditions (up to pH 9) and a complete resistance to chlorine. ...

Abstract

Thin-film composite reverse osmosis membranes have remained the gold standard technology for desalination and water purification for nearly half a century. Polyamide films offer excellent water permeability and salt rejection but also suffer from poor chlorine resistance, high fouling propensity, and low boron rejection. We addressed these issues by molecularly designing a polyester thin-film composite reverse osmosis membrane using co-solvent–assisted interfacial polymerization to react 3,5-dihydroxy-4-methylbenzoic acid with trimesoyl chloride. This polyester membrane exhibits substantial water permeability, high rejection for sodium chloride and boron, and complete resistance toward chlorine. The ultrasmooth, low-energy surface of the membrane also prevents fouling and mineral scaling compared with polyamide membranes. These membranes could increasingly challenge polyamide membranes by further optimizing water-salt selectivity, offering a path to considerably reducing pretreatment steps in desalination."

Greater access to clean water, thanks to a better membrane | Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science

More resilient polyester membranes for high-performance reverse osmosis desalination (no public access)

Another, this time a young ice-sealed ocean at a depth of 20-30 km has been found in our solar system on a moon near Saturn

Amazing stuff!

From the abstract:

"Moons potentially harbouring a global ocean are tending to become relatively common objects in the Solar System. The presence of these long-lived global oceans is generally betrayed by surface modification owing to internal dynamics. Hence, Mimas would be the most unlikely place to look for the presence of a global ocean. Here, from detailed analysis of Mimas’s orbital motion based on Cassini data, with a particular focus on Mimas’s periapsis drift, we show that its heavily cratered icy shell hides a global ocean, at a depth of 20–30 kilometres. Eccentricity damping implies that the ocean is likely to be less than 25 million years old and still evolving. Our simulations show that the ocean–ice interface reached a depth of less than 30 kilometres only recently (less than 2–3 million years ago), a time span too short for signs of activity at Mimas’s surface to have appeared."

Another ice-sealed ocean has been found in our solar system

Mimas' surprise: tiny moon holds young ocean beneath icy shell Hidden beneath the heavily cratered surface of Mimas, one of Saturn's smallest moons, lies a secret: a global ocean of liquid water. 

A recently formed ocean inside Saturn’s moon Mimas

Moon Mimas. The picture is also a strong reminder of when will the earth be hit again by a huge object from space. This would be e.g. a real climate catastrophe

Don't wait, desalinate: A new approach to water purification

Good news! Desalination is salvation! Desalination is without doubt another one of the most important research areas for humanity!

"... To save energy, the researchers streamlined the salt separation process with a chemical phenomenon called a redox reaction. The word redox is a portmanteau of the words reduction (which, in chemistry, describes adding electrons to create a negative charge) and oxidation (which means subtracting electrons to create a positive charge). Physically, triggering a redox reaction looks like adding a special polymer-based material to the wastewater before it’s filtered and purified.
Chemically, the results are transformative. Instead of splitting water molecules into positively and negatively charged slices to coax out the salt, the redox reaction changes the charge of the entire water molecule in one fell swoop, achieving the same degree of salty separation with about 90% less energy than traditional water-splitting. ..."

"... electrodialysis. Just like dialysis of the blood, which, kidney-like, flushes salt and other toxins from our veins, electrodialysis removes salts and organic matter from wastewater to produce a clean, drinkable product. ..."

From the abstract:

"Robust, energy-efficient separation technologies for desalination and the removal of organic contaminants are critical in addressing growing concerns about water shortage and water pollution. Here, we propose a generalized strategy for advancing electrodialysis technologies using redox-flow concepts, by implementing a water-soluble redox-copolymer, poly(ferrocenylpropylmethacrylamide-co-[2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride), P(FPMAm-co-METAC), to eliminate the need for anion-exchange membranes (AEMs) and deploy cheaper and more robust nanofiltration membranes (NFs). The effective membrane retention of the redox material and stable redox activity facilitate the continuous desalination of various source waters, including brackish water, seawater, and wastewater, to produce potable water and remove organic contaminants without membrane fouling or polymer crossover. Leveraging the reversible redox reaction of ferrocene reduces energy consumption by 88% within a single-unit cell compared to conventional ED. In addition, utilizing reusable redox-copolymer and cost-effective NFs promotes economic feasibility, achieving a water production cost of $0.13 m–3. Overall, the combination of redox-copolymer in flow and NFs provides a new avenue to address water contamination caused by organic pollutants and water scarcity in an energy efficient manner."

Don't wait, desalinate: A new approach to water purification

Don’t wait, desalinate: the electrified future of clean water (primary news source) A water purification system developed by Beckman researchers separates out salt and other unnecessary particles with an electrified version of dialysis. Successfully applied to wastewater with planned expansion into rivers and seas, the method saves money and saps 90% less energy than its counterparts.

Redox-Copolymers for Nanofiltration-Enabled Electrodialysis (no public access)

New Generation Of ‘Miracle’ Water-From-Air Machines. Really!

I don't think this technology is scalable! I am skeptical!

It certainly has niche applications! 

To remove moisture from air at scale and continuously is most likely going to have serious negative consequences!

"... And H2oll another Israeli startup, says it can also produce drinking water from the atmosphere – but more cheaply, more efficiently and more sustainably. And in any climate.

It aims to address the global water crisis, especially in the developing world, where countries want to avoid expensive infrastructure, or costly bottled supplies. ..."

New Generation Of ‘Miracle’ Water-From-Air Machines

Huge Water Reservoir Found on Moon: Human Life Next? with Palki Sharma

Amazing stuff! Discovered by Chinese scientists! What took so long?

Where did Earth's water come from? Not melted meteorites, according to scientists

Humans still do not even understand water or where it came from! I have blogged here about this subject (mystery of water) several times!

One more reason that Global Warming is a hoax and Climate Change is a religion!

"... A new study published in the journal Nature brings scientists one step closer to answering that question. ... researchers analyzed melted meteorites that had been floating around in space since the solar system's formation 4 1/2 billion years ago. They found that these meteorites had extremely low water content—in fact, they were among the driest extraterrestrial materials ever measured.
These results, which let researchers rule them out as the primary source of Earth's water, could have important implications for the search for water—and life—on other planets. It also helps researchers understand the unlikely conditions that aligned to make Earth a habitable planet. ..."

From the abstract:

"The timing of delivery and the types of body that contributed volatiles to the terrestrial planets remain highly debated. For example, it is unknown if differentiated bodies, such as that responsible for the Moon-forming giant impact, could have delivered substantial volatiles or if smaller, undifferentiated objects were more probable vehicles of water delivery. Here we show that the water contents of minerals in achondrite meteorites (mantles or crusts of differentiated planetesimals) from both the inner and outer portions of the early Solar System are ≤2 μg g−1 H2O. These are among the lowest values ever reported for extraterrestrial minerals. Our results demonstrate that differentiated planetesimals efficiently degassed before or during melting. This finding implies that substantial amounts of water could only have been delivered to Earth by means of unmelted material."

Where did Earth's water come from? Not melted meteorites, according to scientists

Degassing of early-formed planetesimals restricted water delivery to Earth (no public access)

Purifying water with just a few atoms

Amazing stuff! Water purification at the level of single atoms!

This research seems to describe a further and promising advancement of nanocatalysts.

Besides purification, I bet something similar can also be applied to desalination! Desalination is salvation!

"Due to their considerable efficiency, catalysts made of just a few atoms show great promise in the field of water treatment. In a new study, researchers looked into how to optimize the performance of these catalysts and make them viable for practical use. ...
a system with a catalyst using an ensemble of palladium atoms, designed to reduce the carcinogen bromate in water. They introduced the non-metal elements sulfur, nitrogen, and boron to the surrounds of atom ensembles. The overall results suggested an improvement in the system’s catalytic performance. ..."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

Substrate-anchored, single-atom catalysts (SACs) have emerged as a promising alternative to conventional nanocatalysts for various catalytic processes. The catalytic performance of SACs can be controlled by various synthetic strategies, including the manipulation of substrate atoms surrounding metal sites. This study examines whether the coordination environment (CE) of the palladium metal ensemble, a newly identified small-clustered structure with CE resembling that of SAC, can also be tuned by doping nonmetal elements onto the substrate. The results demonstrate that such CE manipulation could decrease the activation energy of the rate-limiting step and achieve efficient H2 dissociation for several important reductive catalytic schemes, establishing a new strategy to effectively engineer metal ensemble catalysts.

Abstract

Atomic dispersion of metal catalysts on a substrate accounts for the increased atomic efficiency of single-atom catalysts (SACs) in various catalytic schemes compared to the nanoparticle counterparts. However, lacking neighboring metal sites has been shown to deteriorate the catalytic performance of SACs in a few industrially important reactions, such as dehalogenation, CO oxidation, and hydrogenation. Metal ensemble catalysts (Mn), an extended concept to SACs, have emerged as a promising alternative to overcome such limitation. Inspired by the fact that the performance of fully isolated SACs can be enhanced by tailoring their coordination environment (CE), we here evaluate whether the CE of Mn can also be manipulated in order to enhance their catalytic activity. We synthesized a set of Pd ensembles (Pdn) on doped graphene supports (Pdn/X-graphene where X = O, S, B, and N). We found that introducing S and N onto oxidized graphene modifies the first shell of Pdn converting Pd–O to Pd–S and Pd–N, respectively. We further found that the B dopant significantly affected the electronic structure of Pdn by serving as an electron donor in the second shell. We examined the performance of Pdn/X-graphene toward selective reductive catalysis, such as bromate reduction, brominated organic hydrogenation, and aqueous-phase CO2 reduction. We observed that Pdn/N-graphene exhibited superior performance by lowering the activation energy of the rate-limiting step, i.e., H2 dissociation into atomic hydrogen. The results collectively suggest controlling the CE of SACs in an ensemble configuration is a viable strategy to optimize and enhance their catalytic performance."

Purifying water with just a few atoms | Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science

Enhancing the activity of Pd ensembles on graphene by manipulating coordination environment (no public access)

Wastewater treatment plant On A Truck Will Ease India’s Waste Water Crisis

Good news! Happy 75th Independence Day for India!

"Mobile water treatment plants that can fit on the back of a truck are being deployed across towns and villages in India. 

The technology developed by an Israeli company will help tackle the country’s desperate sewage crisis.

India generates over 72 million liters of sewage a day, but can treat barely one-third of it. Much of it ends up, untreated, in rivers and lakes, creating a huge health hazard. ...
Huliot, an Israeli manufacturer of advanced pipe systems, developed the ClearBlack STP, which fits inside a shipping container. It was launched in 20 Indian states on August 15th, Indian Independence Day. ..."

Tech On A Truck Will Ease India’s Waste Water Crisis

New phenomenon ‘quantum friction’ explains water’s bizarre properties

The magic of water or we still do not even understand water!

Just two days ago, I blogged here about "Direct evidence emerges for the existence of two forms of liquid water"

Quick reminder: We don't yet even understand water fully, but Western societies are inundated on a daily basis with the pseudoscience and pretense of knowledge of Global Warming and Climate Change!

"‘Quantum friction’ – a component of friction not present in classical physics, has been postulated by researchers in France to explain anomalies in the behaviour of water at carbon-based surfaces like graphite, graphene and carbon nanotubes. The phenomenon’s generality is not yet known, but it could potentially be useful in fields such as desalination that require selectively permeable membranes. ...
However, this fails to explain some odd experimental observations: notably, water flows through microfluidic channels in graphene much faster than in bulk graphite. More bizarrely, ... found that, when multi-walled carbon nanotubes become narrower, water actually flows through them faster. ...
describe these collective charge fluctuations in flowing water as quantised excitations called ‘hydrons’. These hydrons cannot dissipate significant amounts of energy into graphene, the researchers calculate, so only classical friction is important. When water flows past bulk graphite, however, hydrons resonantly excite quantised electron density fluctuations called plasmons, thereby slowing down the water. ‘Graphite has this very peculiar surface plasmon that has precisely the right energy and momentum to talk to the hydrons,’ ... ‘Water friction is not anomalously low on graphene, but instead it is anomalously high on graphite,’ the researchers write. In this case, the quantum friction can be about 10 times as large as the classical friction. ..."

From the abstract:

"... Here we develop a quantum theory of the solid–liquid interface, which reveals a new contribution to friction, due to the coupling of charge fluctuations in the liquid to electronic excitations in the solid. We expect that this quantum friction, which is absent in Born–Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, is the dominant friction mechanism for water on carbon-based materials. As a key result, we demonstrate a marked difference in quantum friction between the water–graphene and water–graphite interface, due to the coupling of water Debye collective modes with a thermally excited plasmon specific to graphite. ..."

New phenomenon ‘quantum friction’ explains water’s bizarre properties | Research | Chemistry World

Fluctuation-induced quantum friction in nanoscale water flows (no public access)