A winning idea: how to solve water scarcity with graphene

Nadia Ayad from Brazil won product area Sandvik Coromant’s Graphene Challenge with her innovative idea to use the material in a desalinization solution for ordinary homes.

Pending water scarcity was the impetus for Nadia Ayad's winning entry in the Graphene Challenge.

Nadya designed a filtration and desalinization device for homes that would make use of graphene to recycle water e.g. from a washing machine or from under the sink and turn it into drinking water. This would reduce both energy costs and the strain on water supplies.

"Graphene was something that we had heard about in class – an amazing material that will likely play a big role in the future because it has very interesting properties. I started reading about it and trying to think of a way to apply it," she says.

As winner of the Graphene Challenge, Nadia visits Sweden in November and Sandvik Coromant's headquarters in Sandviken and the Graphene Centre at Chalmers University.

About the challenge

The Graphene Challenge, which ran during spring 2016, sought to inspire the next generation of engineers by encouraging them to discover innovative and sustainable ideas on how graphene could be used in modern households.