Panasonic develops new water purification system

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Panasonic Corp on Monday announced that it has developed a highly effective water purification system using a newly developed photocatalyst. This system is capable of effective detoxification of polluted water by harmful heavy metals, such as arsenic, chromium, and persistent organic matter at a reaction rate of up to 100 times that of conventional methods.

The photocatalyst has a unique structure and is easy to collect from the polluted water after the detoxification and is recyclable. Through this development, a water purification system which is small size and isolated from municipal water networks can be realized, making is suitable for developing countries, where safe and low cost drinking water is needed.

Increasing demands and shortage of clean drinking water resources due to the rapid development of industrialization, population growth and long-term droughts have become a global issue. In polluted areas, drinking water may contain metal pollutants at levels more than double international standards. The slurry photocatalytic water treatment technology has the potential to resolve these problems that especially occur in contaminated groundwater since this technology efficiently reduces the toxicity of harmful pollutants by a maximum of 99.99%: trivalent arsenic and hexavalent chromium are converted into less harmful chemicals. As no consumption of chemical materials is carried out during the photocatalytic water treatment, the technology has a lower impact on the environmental in comparison to conventional chemical water treatments.