STRIPPING potentially fatal bacteria from drinking water supplies could be one of the first real-world jobs for carbon nanotubes.
In experiments that could easily be scaled up to a practical level, researchers have developed nanotubes that can trap bacteria by making them stick together in clumps. These can then be sieved out of the water and destroyed.
Ya-Ping Sun, whose team developed the nanotubes at Clemson University in South Carolina, says that the first application could be in filters at water purification plants. “How soon depends on funding and the interest of industrial collaborators,” he says. The results of his…
