clean water

#FreetheScience for solving sanitation challenges

In 2015, the World Economic Forum identified the water crisis as the number one global risk based on impact and potential devastation to society. One out of ten people lack access to safe water, and World Health Organization estimates that every day nearly 1,000 children die from diarrheal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water.

Electrochemists are working on this problem. Luis Godínez, is developing an electrochemical reactor to eliminate hazardous pollutants from wastewater without expensive infrastructure; or Gerri Botte's urine-electrolysis process can produce both clean water and hydrogen energy from human urine.

In fact, in 2014, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's WASH Initiative reached out to The Electrochemical Society to tap the brainpower of 100 electrochemists to solve global water and sanitation challenges affecting 2.5 billion people.

Whether it’s addressing lead contamination in a city's water pipes or disease-causing parasites in the Sudan, electrochemists can help improve access to safe drinking water around the world.