Craig Arnold, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Princeton and vice dean of innovation, utilized egg whites to develop an aerogel, a lightweight and porous material that may be used in a variety of applications such as water filtering, energy storage, and sound and thermal insulation.
Egg whites are a complex system of practically pure protein that, when freeze dried and heated to 900 degrees Celsius in an oxygen-free atmosphere, forms a structure of interwoven strands of carbon fibers and sheets of graphene.
Arnold and his colleagues demonstrated in a research that the resultant material can remove salt and microplastics from seawater with 98% and 99% effectiveness, respectively. While regular store-bought egg whites were used in initial tests, other similar commercially available proteins produced the same results.
![Egg](https://www.cleanfuture.co.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/nathan-dumlao-pYaepuphRq8-unsplash-1536x864-1-1024x576.jpg)
Because other proteins also functioned, the material has the potential to be made in vast quantities at a low cost and without affecting the food supply. The researchers’ next step will be to refine the construction method so that it can be employed in larger-scale water filtration.
![](https://www.cleanfuture.co.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/egg-white-photo-768x432-1.jpg)
Who knows where this research will lead? Ocean water desalination or the possibility of removing microplastics from saltwater We still don’t know how much it would cost to desalinate a cubic meter of saltwater using this procedure, but the study is intriguing enough that we thought you’d be interested.
Reference- Materials Today, Princeton Press Release, Futurism, Interesting Engineering, Clean Technica