To detect the smallest water footprint
2006/08/31 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia
Water is essential for living. However, the smallest water drops can also cause significant damage to fuels, organic solvents, or lubricants, as they are able to deteriorate engines, stop reactions, and oxidize metals. Therefore, it is important to have adequate tests that detect water in these topics.
The Weizmann Institute has developed an effective and useful test for the detection of water molecules. It is a film of 1.7 nanometers thick that detects the small water molecules that can be in the liquid, although there are only parts per million.
To do this, the film includes metal complexes. These metallic complexes capture electrons from water molecules, when the color of the complex changes. The color change is visual.
The test can be done in 5 minutes and the film can be reused again and again after being cleaned with a simple chemical theme. In addition, it is cheap and can be placed on many materials: glass, plastic, silicon, fiber optic... Now they want to adapt the test to detect other topics.
