66-year-old Alan Turing paper inspires new water-purification technique

When you think about the English computer scientist Alan Turing you most probably think of either his code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Park during World War II or his early hypotheses about artificial intelligence, which resulted in the formulation of the famous Turing Test.

Something you probably don’t associate him with? Groundbreaking chemistry — and, more specifically, groundbreaking chemistry which could soon be used to provide people around the world with a more efficient way of obtaining drinkable freshwater. But that could soon change.

Turing only published one paper on this subject during his life, just two years before his untimely death in the early 1950s. In the paper, he described what have come to be known as “Turing structures,” an attempt to chemically explain naturally occurring patterns such as the spots on a leopard or the stripes on a zebra.

Jump forward to 2018, and researchers in China have now used Turing’s influential concept as the basis for work providing more efficient desalination, referring to the process by which salt is removed from saltwater to make it safely drinkable. “We successfully developed a facile route based on interfacial polymerization to generate polyamide membranes with Turing structures,” Lin Zhang, […]

More about desalination applications:

Desalination Produces 50 Percent More Toxic Brine Than Previously Thought

Pioneering solar-powered greenhouse to grow food without fresh water

Opinion: Desalination plant in Southern California is important to water security

Using sunlight to the max

New solar technology promises safe drinking water in a compact off-grid footprint

Summary
66-year-old Alan Turing paper inspires new water-purification technique
Article Name
66-year-old Alan Turing paper inspires new water-purification technique
Description
English computer scientist Alan Turing has become known for many impressive things circa World War II. Something you probably don't know him for? Groundbreaking chemistry which could soon be used to provide a more efficient way of obtaining drinkable freshwater to people around the world. But that could soon change.
Author
Publisher Name
Digital Trends
Publisher Logo