Scientists from INST and IITs Develop Reusable Water Filter

• Scientists from INST, IIT-Dharwad, and IIT-Kharagpur have developed a reusable water filter.

• The filter uses light and vibrations to clean water, avoiding the harmful effects of industrial dyes like Congo Red and Methylene Blue.

• The filter was developed using 3D printed sheets of polylactic acid (PLA) and nanoparticles of bismuth ferrite (BFO).

• The BFO acts as a solar-powered catalyst under visible light, splitting water molecules and creating reactive radicals that shred organic dye molecules.

• The filter removed about 99% of Congo Red and 74% of Methylene Blue in 90 minutes and partially cleaned real wastewater from a textile plant.

• Machine-learning regression models were used to understand the filter’s performance, proving artificial intelligence could accurately forecast how fast dyes vanish in different conditions.