34 Subject xxxx - xxx 20xx Water. desalination + reuse
FAR
SITE
JEFF MOSHER
"We want to do more
integrated research" p37
Membranes
from Nobel
Prize winning
chemistry
Water Planet's new ceramic-
like polymer traces its roots
back to the work of Nobel
Prize in Chemistry 2000 win-
ner Alan MacDiarmid. The
prize that year was jointly
awarded to Alan Heeger,
Hideki Shirakawa, and MacDi-
armid, "for the discovery and
development of conductive
polymers". MacDiarmid was
born in New Zealand in 1927,
and in 1950 won a Fullbright
fellowship to study in the US.
Among the PhDs he later su-
pervised was that of Richard
Kaner, now professor at the
University of California, Los
Angeles, at the departments
of chemistry and biochemis-
try, and materials science and
engineering. Kaner works on
all aspects of conducting poly-
mers, and was instrumental in
developing the science behind
Water Planet's new PolyCera
products.
LOOK
Conducting
polymers alternate
single and double bonds
between carbon atoms, and
dope the polymers, so that
holes appear a er the
electrons.
