Yet another potential way to clean water – tiny tubes of human protein

[Rex Sanders]

1.5 micrograms of tiny tubes of human serum albumin, cleared over 99.99999% of E. Coli bacteria from one liter of water in 30 minutes:

Report in Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-protein-cleans-bacteria-from-drinking-water/

Scientific article in ChemComm
http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/c4cc03632h

Note that this might never become a product. The tubes were engineered specifically for the size of E. Coli. If you want to trap other stuff, you'll need a mixture of different sized tubes. Might not work on viruses. Might not work in dirty water. You still need to get the trapped critters out of the water, though they did show that adding magnetite nano particles made clumping the mixture easy.

On the other hand, at 1.5 micrograms per critter, a mix that trapped thousands of different kinds of critters could still make a gram weenie happy.

— Rex

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