News in Brief Materials Science

A filter that turns saltwater into freshwater just got an upgrade

Making the material smoother prevents it from getting gunked up quickly

desalination plant in Dubai

SMOOTH MOVE Hundreds of millions of people rely on desalinated water from plants like this one in Dubai. A new-and-improved salt-filtering material could help make freshwater production more affordable.

Stanislav71/Shutterstock

By Maria Temming

- More than 2 years ago

Smoothing out the rough patches of a material widely used to filter saltwater could make producing freshwater more affordable, researchers report in the Aug.