Distilling 2.0: Bye-Bye Boiling, Hello Health Care

Distilling 2.0: Bye-Bye Boiling, Hello Health Care
By Dave Bullock Write to the Author
09.05.08

PASADENA, California – For all you moonshine makers who thought your hobby was just a guilty pleasure, a new spin on distilling may actually help save lives. Using ancient technology reduced to a microscopic scale, scientists at Caltech have created new tools to detect disease and purify water using tiny stills.

The creation of the still around A.D. 500 was one of humanity's earliest, and still quite popular, technological advancements. Traditionally, a still boils liquids in order to vaporize and separate them. Now, using nanoparticles and lasers, liquids no longer need to be boiled to be separated.

Removing the heat requirement from distillation means the process could be used to separate living cells without killing them, which could lead to advanced disease detection. Other applications include extracting water cheaply and efficiently from sea water in low-energy saltwater distillation plants.

How do they do it? Take a tour through professor David Boyd's lab and go behind the scenes of this revolutionary process.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/09/gallery_caltech_nano_still

Warms my heart to see a lab messier than mine, too. :rofl: