A team of researchers have used pulses of light to eliminate organic micropollutants (OMPs) in water, according to an article from The Engineer.

OMPs are contaminants that originate from pharmaceuticals, industrial chemical additives and hormones. Utilising a xenon flash lamp and varying both the intensity and the frequency of the pulses of high-intensity pulsed light (HIPL), the team from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) were able to find the most effective parameters to decompose 11 OMPs from a test solution.

“They (the OMPs) are being continually released into waterways by wastewater treatment plants, with conventional treatment methods proving to have only limited effects in removing these contaminants,” said Luca Fortunato, a research scientist at KAUST.

“Our innovative approach allows for efficient removal of OMPs from water within milliseconds, making it ideal for high-throughput water treatment applications,” said Thomas Anthopoulos, a fellow colleague of Fortunato’s and also a professor in material science and engineering at KAUST.

Looking forward, the team will look to scale up the setup of this system, whilst also aiming to bolster the system’s efficiency. 

“We hope to soon build a pilot-scale reactor to more realistically assess the efficiency of the treatment on wastewater effluent,” Fortunato said.