The Goldsmith Lab
  • Home
  • People
  • Ecology & Education
  • Publications
  • Thoughts

A Place For Occasional Thoughts

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Drinking water: plants as cheap, efficient and effective filters?

3/3/2014

38 Comments

 
Picture
Peel off the bark of your nearest pine tree, fasten it to a source of dirty water, and wait for the clean water to come out the other side. 

Providing a simple, cheap, and sustainable method for filtering dirty water is that simple, according to a new study published this week in PLoS ONE. The study demonstrates that a 2 cm long piece of branch with a 1 cm diameter can filter 99.9% of the E. coli out of a water sample and that each segment could be effective for a few liters a day. Not surprisingly, it needs to be fresh branch wood, not dried.

Picture
The plant's xylem, and more specifically the torus-margo pit membrane,  is responsible for all of the action. Xylem is the series of tubes that water travels through in a branch --- torus-margo pits are tiny closable valves between tubes. The interesting thing about the torus-margo pits is that they have the appearance of a spiderweb, with a pancake in the middle (the best description I can come up with...), and that spiderweb is where all of the E. coli is captured. Torus-margo pits serve a vital function in the plants, when there is not enough water the spiderweb flexes so that the pancake presses against the connection between the two tubes, effectively isolating one (empty) tube from another (full tube). It's very cool to consider another possible function, albeit totally unintended, for this anatomical feature. 

It's clear that this paper is a proof of concept and that a lot of work remains to be done. The authors, all mechanical engineers at MIT, did an admirable job of teaching themselves about xylem...I wonder how these efforts could be advanced more rapidly with some help from the plant ecophysiologists among us. Nevertheless, my understanding is that cheap and efficient water filters are something of a holy grail...nearly 1 billion people still do not have access to clean water. Imagine the possibilities this could inspire...
Torus-margo pit. The torus is the valve (pancake) in the center and the margo is the membrane (spiderweb). From Choat et al. (2008). 

Boutilier et al. 2014. Water filtration using plant xylem. PLoS ONE 9(2): e89934. 

38 Comments
https://www.pasifiklife.com/ link
10/7/2020 03:39:38 am

sıfır sıkıntı sıfır sıkıntı sıfır sıkıntı pasifiklife ile sıfır sıkıntı https://www.pasifiklife.com/

Reply
alfred link
9/1/2021 11:14:55 pm

gooojob

Reply
rin link
9/2/2021 02:53:42 am

ayos

Reply
jan link
9/2/2021 04:36:37 pm

lakas

Reply
dan link
9/3/2021 12:46:10 am

nice

Reply
levi link
9/3/2021 05:33:39 pm

goodjob

Reply
jade link
9/3/2021 10:49:45 pm

ilove it

Reply
yoru link
9/5/2021 06:18:17 pm

beautiful

Reply
jhin link
9/5/2021 10:25:48 pm

These are great tips,

Reply
jeff link
9/6/2021 05:43:02 pm

Wow, that is incredible

Reply
luis link
9/6/2021 09:19:35 pm

Thank you for sharing

Reply
josh link
9/7/2021 05:39:16 pm

Incredible blog posts

Reply
asta link
9/8/2021 06:00:02 pm

Very Nice And Interesting Post!!

Reply
jm link
9/9/2021 09:37:23 pm

this is verry cool

Reply
miya link
9/12/2021 05:04:25 pm

amizing zrticle <3

Reply
vale link
9/12/2021 08:40:03 pm

this is good!

Reply
deku link
9/13/2021 05:50:47 pm

great blog here

Reply
isay link
9/13/2021 08:15:12 pm

verry intelegent article

Reply
isay link
9/13/2021 10:17:05 pm

People are very creative

Reply
lovely link
9/14/2021 05:36:26 pm

Thanks for taking time to rwite this.

Reply
tina link
9/15/2021 05:46:38 pm

Great explanation

Reply
zen link
9/16/2021 08:05:42 pm

This is very interesting,....

Reply
george link
9/19/2021 05:38:39 pm

Thanks for sharing this post

Reply
yesha link
9/23/2021 06:21:33 pm

Additionally your website lots up tips.....

Reply
jery link
9/23/2021 09:13:02 pm

Thanks for some other informative web site.

Reply
james link
9/24/2021 06:03:39 pm

Great blog! I am glad I found your blog I love this one.

Reply
robin link
9/24/2021 09:49:46 pm


gustoko magbasa ng mga gantong article

Reply
kim link
9/26/2021 06:16:51 pm


Thanks for sharing this post ganda ng article

Reply
bane link
9/27/2021 07:31:45 pm

Thankful for this project i verry like this....

Reply
lyka link
9/28/2021 05:28:36 pm

Thankful for this project

Reply
kurt link
9/28/2021 07:41:42 pm

ove seeing and hearing

Reply
emma link
9/29/2021 05:11:18 pm

your article helped me a lot.....

Reply
kenan link
9/30/2021 05:16:52 pm

Good point about the article.

Reply
cristian link
10/1/2021 06:24:18 pm

Ayos This is vinteresting

Reply
jessie link
10/1/2021 07:19:03 pm

It’s pretty value enough for me. Personally,

Reply
daniel link
10/1/2021 08:26:51 pm

I never found any interesting article like yours.

Reply
jake link
10/3/2021 07:18:06 pm

I’m definitely enjoying the information.

Reply
rina link
10/3/2021 08:09:58 pm

nice this a goodd article...ayos

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    September 2022
    July 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    August 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    July 2019
    March 2019
    November 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    Altmetrics
    Amazon
    Clean Water
    Conservation
    Deforestation
    Ecohydrology
    Google Trends
    Meteorology
    Plant Ecophysiology
    Science Communication
    Smartphones
    Stable Isotopes
    Technology And Innovation
    Tropical Ecology

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.