Affordable Clean Water Using Smart Materials and Systems

Dear Colleagues,

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 2 billion people use contaminated and unsafe drinking water. Water-related diseases adversely impact the lives of the poor, especially in the case of disasters when people do not have access to clean water. There are many studies, products, and projects in relation to developing efficient water filtration systems using various materials and techniques; however, 485,000 people still die annually from waterborne diseases, which are easily transmitted, for example, during flooding. Solving this problem requires scientists to design and develop efficient but affordable water filters, which is still a gap not only in the literature but also in industry.

In addition to the design, material selection, and performance of water filtration membranes, the distribution of the filters among the poor communities is also a hidden challenge where it can affect the selected materials and design indirectly. Among those suitable materials, polymeric nanofibrous and nanoporous membranes are one of the best candidates which can be prepared using different methods, such as electrospinning, melt blowing, melt spinning, forcespinning, etc. As for the fabrication of the membranes and filters’ vehicles, there are various methods, such as polymer injection molding, 3D printing, or blowing techniques, allowing more flexibility into the design and distribution of filters, such as embedding sensors to quantify the cleanliness of the filtered water, or designing a smart distribution system where the quality of the water and the health of the people who use the filter can be collected by a server. Solving these issues requires researchers to conduct multidisciplinary research that involves a collaboration between material scientists, mechanical and electrical engineers, and water and social scientists.

In this Special Issue, we would like to focus on the design, fabrication, and distribution of efficient, affordable, and smart water filtration systems. We would like to invite researchers to contribute their new ideas and insightful designs and materials to help us to familiarize Water’s readership, including researchers, universities, governments, NGOs, and technopreneurs, with the topic so we can all come up with efficient, affordable, and easily accessible water filter systems to provide clean water to people, particularly in the case of disasters.  

Dr. Pooria Pasbakhsh
Dr. Kheng-Lim Goh
Dr. Rangika De Silva
Dr. Vladimir Zivkovic
Guest Editors

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• nanofibrous membranes
• clean water
• porous materials
• disaster management
• polymer nanocomposites
• 3D printing
• smart materials
• data science