Prof. Dr. Sherif El Safty, an Egyptian born-and-raised chemist and expert in Nanotechnology, developed a Nano-material which enables simple, quick and efficient detection and removal of arsenic from drinking water.

El Safty obtained his Ph.D. in the year 2000 and worked as a lecturer at the Chemistry Department in the University of Tanta in Egypt, and in 2005, he was also appointed as an Associate Professor. In 2008, he became a Senior Researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Japan, leading an independent group of passionate researchers who actively support the goal of creating nano materials for use in environmental clean-up systems.

Revolutionary Ideas

He has worked in Japan for more than 10 years and has about 20 licensed inventions registered under his name. He also has published more than 190 papers in advanced materials and related chemistry journals and received over 16 awards worldwide.

His technique, which relies on nanotechnology to capture contaminators and reduce them from drinking water, has made him, formally, one of the most eligible scientists to win a 2013 Noble Prize in Chemistry.

The material which was developed by El Safty and his team is developed as a sensor for heavy metal ions and adsorbent materials, which El-Safty developed previously for a rare metal adsorption/recovery technique. The ingenious material, also known as a “chemo-sensor”, is developed from nanoporous substances, which consist of a regular organic or inorganic framework supporting a porous structure.

This type of materials can either be found in nature or fabricated. The size of the pores is generally 100 nanometers or smaller. Those nanoporous substances are densely packed with elements which can detect and capture arsenic inside the pores.

No matter how small of an amount of arsenic is present in water, these nanomaterials can capture the contaminators quickly and adsorb them, showing a change of color which is visible to the naked eye, indicating the absorption and removal of arsenic. This method has proved its efficiency in solving both large-scale and small-scale arsenic pollution situations.

Since it is highly quick, sensitive, light weight, cheap and basically harmless, it can be used by organizations working to solve problems such as the Fukushima leakage and it can also be used by individual organizations and companies or rather smaller institutions who aim to clean water supplied to them from various sources.

Professor El-Safty believes that nanotechnology has enormous potential to solve major problems especially in fields such as environmental pollution, energy, agriculture and medicine.

If given enough attention and further development, methods like this one and many others based on nanotechnology which are now under development can truly affect the impact of water (and other forms of) pollution and reduce it noticeably.

The ever-so-quick spreading of arsenic water poisoning is a red alarm light for environmental organizations to start focusing on such quick and efficient ways that can eliminate the threat of water pollution and consequently help restore our planet to its former clean, healthy and clear glory.

https://en.islamstory.com/en/artical/16326/Egyptian-Scientist-Who-Saved-Japan-and-the-Pacific