A big step for nanoporous graphene provides a small step for desalination

Abstract

Residents of Cape Town, South Africa, planned their daily lives around a quota of 50 liters of water per person per day during the first months of 2018. As the city's freshwater reservoirs dwindled, the municipal government rushed to bring a desalination plant on line. Fortunately, heavy rains in June ended the region's three-year drought. But the city's water crisis illustrated a situation that's becoming increasingly common in the face of growing populations and changing climate. The United Nations predicts that two-thirds of the world's population will face freshwater shortages by 2025.