An Indian scientist headed a path-breaking study that discovered membranes based on the “miracle material” graphene can be used to distil alcohol.
The discovery, widely reported in the British media this week, was conducted by a five-member scientists’ team headed by Dr Rahul Nair at the University of Manchester in the UK. The international team also included Prof. Andre Geim, Nobel Prize winner in Physics for 2010. The team created the membrane from graphene oxide — a chemical derivative of grapheme to distil alcohol.
A paper named “Unimpeded permeation of water through helium-leak–tight graphene-based membranes”, published on Friday in the Science Journal, says that graphene-based membrane blocks passage of gases and liquids (vacuum-tight) but it lets water through them.
Dr Rahul Nair is a native of Kuttanperoor in Alappuzha district, Kerala. He told this newspaper via his Internet link from UK that the team in the university created membranes from a chemical derivative of graphene called graphene oxide.
He also asserted that even the most sensitive equipment was unable to detect air or any other gas, including helium, to leak through as a metal container was sealed with the membrane. “We did all works as per the instruction of Prof. Geim who commented on the study that the invention of membranes was so unusual that it could make a new move to the scientific innovation being made by Manchester scientists,” he told this newspaper.