Singapore's university and government agency has developed a nano-material which could cut cost of filtering and recycling water, local media reported on Monday.

The new material, developed by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB), uses nanotechnology, which controls matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometer, and is made up of nano-sized crystals, according to local television Channel NewsAsia.

This was revealed in an international water and wastewater technologies conference which opened here Monday.

Because the crystals are so tiny, they are able to capture a large amount of unwanted matter in the water. That is why the nano- material works better than conventional cleaning filters or membranes, the report said.

"Conventional polymer membrane is just a filter. But this new technology will make the filter double up as a reactor which will be able to destroy unwanted material," Associate Professor Darren Sun, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering of NTU, told Channel NewsAsia.

The nano-material destroys unwanted matter like dissolved salts and chemical compounds in water by using ultraviolet light and visible light. Then it clears its surface to allow more unwanted material to collect.

It will take researchers a few years to make a cleaning filter or membrane out of the nano-material. And they are now test the material and on one stage of the pre-treatment of waste and sea water.

Source: Xinhua