Nature waterPub Date : 2025-03-12DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00409-8
Seth B. Darling
{"title":"Navigating the membrane maze for lithium extraction","authors":"Seth B. Darling","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00409-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00409-8","url":null,"abstract":"Research now demonstrates that solution-processable polymer membranes with hydrophilic subnanometre pores can selectively extract lithium ions from salt-lake brines, offering a potentially sustainable approach to meet the growing demand for lithium in energy storage applications.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"258-259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-03-12DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00398-8
Dingchang Yang, Yijie Yang, Toby Wong, Sunshine Iguodala, Anqi Wang, Louie Lovell, Fabrizia Foglia, Peter Fouquet, Charlotte Breakwell, Zhiyu Fan, Yanlin Wang, Melanie M. Britton, Daryl R. Williams, Nilay Shah, Tongwen Xu, Neil B. McKeown, Maria-Magdalena Titirici, Kim E. Jelfs, Qilei Song
{"title":"Solution-processable polymer membranes with hydrophilic subnanometre pores for sustainable lithium extraction","authors":"Dingchang Yang, Yijie Yang, Toby Wong, Sunshine Iguodala, Anqi Wang, Louie Lovell, Fabrizia Foglia, Peter Fouquet, Charlotte Breakwell, Zhiyu Fan, Yanlin Wang, Melanie M. Britton, Daryl R. Williams, Nilay Shah, Tongwen Xu, Neil B. McKeown, Maria-Magdalena Titirici, Kim E. Jelfs, Qilei Song","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00398-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00398-8","url":null,"abstract":"Membrane-based separation processes hold great promise for sustainable extraction of lithium from brines for the rapidly expanding electric vehicle industry and renewable energy storage. However, it remains challenging to develop high-selectivity membranes that can be upscaled for industrial processes. Here we report solution-processable polymer membranes with subnanometre pores with excellent ion separation selectivity in electrodialysis processes for lithium extraction. Polymers of intrinsic microporosity incorporated with hydrophilic functional groups enable fast transport of monovalent alkali cations (Li+, Na+ and K+) while rejecting relatively larger divalent ions such as Mg2+. The polymer of intrinsic microporosity membranes surpasses the performance of most existing membrane materials. Furthermore, the membranes were scaled up and integrated into an electrodialysis stack, demonstrating excellent selectivity in simulated salt-lake brines. This work will inspire the development of selective membranes for a wide range of sustainable separation processes critical for resource recovery and a global circular economy. The microporous polymer membranes with the introduction of hydrophilic functional groups achieve high selectivity for monovalent/divalent ion separation in electrodialysis processes, providing an alternative approach to lithium extraction with easy scale-up.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"319-333"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00398-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-03-10DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00410-1
Adrienne Epstein, Jason M. Nagata, Sheri D. Weiser
{"title":"Flood-related violence against women","authors":"Adrienne Epstein, Jason M. Nagata, Sheri D. Weiser","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00410-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00410-1","url":null,"abstract":"Extreme weather events are increasingly linked to violence. A new study finds that exposure to floods increases risk of intimate-partner violence among women, especially among more vulnerable populations.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"256-257"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-03-07DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00402-1
Antonio Moreno-Rodenas, Juan Diego Mantilla-Jones, Daniel Valero
{"title":"Age, climate and economic disparities drive the current state of global dam safety","authors":"Antonio Moreno-Rodenas, Juan Diego Mantilla-Jones, Daniel Valero","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00402-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00402-1","url":null,"abstract":"Dams are essential for flood protection, water resources management, energy generation and storage and food production. However, the consequences of their failure can be catastrophic, as demonstrated by recent examples. Here this study revisits dam failures worldwide since 1900, analysing key factors driving the failure risk, profiling current dam safety and providing an outlook to the near future. Similar to previous analyses (1970s to 2010s), we observe a strong infant mortality, which remains especially important for the development of new embankment dams, while recent concrete dams have become more resilient. In contrast, hazard signals related to ageing remain yet less apparent, contrary to common belief. Nevertheless, given their abundance, we expect decades-old dams to be prevalent in future failure statistics—especially for embankment dams of height between 15 and 70 m built in the second half of the last century. This highlights the relevance of investments in monitoring, maintenance and uprating, which, if ignored, could become a substantial liability and a major vulnerability, especially in the context of increased flooding frequency. We uncover a trend of increased failure rates of newly constructed dams in low-income regions, which coincides with areas where a substantial hydropower potential remains untapped. This is especially intensified in monsoon-dominated climates, whereas the pattern of construction and failures is more homogeneous across other major climatic regions. Our statistical analysis suggests that 23 (95% confidence interval 14–33) large dam failures are to be expected worldwide in the near future (2023–2035), with currently ~4.4% of large dams having a probability of failure larger than 1/10,000. Contrarily, 85% of large dams are at least twice as safe as this threshold, commonly embraced in policy. These findings can support the targeted allocation of limited resources for the future-proofing of infrastructure, thereby contributing to water, food and energy security. Through a reassessment of global dam failure records since 1900, this investigation profiles the risk of failure for large dams, identifying a recent increase that is especially important in tropical and monsoon climate regions with low gross domestic product.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"284-295"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00402-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-03-07DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00414-x
Elizabeth Ann Koch, Bethlehem Mengistu
{"title":"Evolving principles of women-led water diplomacy","authors":"Elizabeth Ann Koch, Bethlehem Mengistu","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00414-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00414-x","url":null,"abstract":"Inclusive water and climate-related decision-making has never been more critical to supporting the foundations for a peaceful and secure future.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"246-247"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00414-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-03-05DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00405-y
Gregory Pierce, Edith de Guzman, Megan Mullin
{"title":"Redefining expectations for urban water supply systems to fight wildfires","authors":"Gregory Pierce, Edith de Guzman, Megan Mullin","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00405-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00405-y","url":null,"abstract":"Three major implications stemming from the water supply narratives around the Los Angeles fires have emerged: the need for greater infrastructure resilience, considering the uneven costs of new expectations, and combating disinformation.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"248-250"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00405-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690326","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dual-substrate synergistic catalysis for highly efficient water purification","authors":"Lu-Jia Shi, Gui-Xiang Huang, Zhao-Hua Wang, Yanghua Duan, Ying-Jie Zhang, Jie-Jie Chen, Wen-Wei Li, Han-Qing Yu, Menachem Elimelech","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00400-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00400-3","url":null,"abstract":"Non-radical oxidation of pollutants by direct electron transfer has gained heightened interest in water purification for its higher selectivity and efficiency and lower tendency for byproduct formation than traditional advanced oxidation processes. Engineering of catalysts for efficient activation of two substrates (that is, pollutant and oxidant) is essential to trigger the direct electron transfer reactions but is often hindered by the distinct properties of the co-present substrates. We investigated the individual interaction between the catalyst and each substrate and proposed a dual-substrate synergistic catalysis strategy to achieve separate optimization of each substrate activation process. Experimental and theoretical analyses reveal a strong synergistic effect between the two catalysts that preferentially activate the substrates and have smaller resistance for interfacial electron transfer, thus drastically improving the decontamination efficiency. The dual-substrate synergistic catalysis system offers a conceptual advancement in achieving green and efficient water purification by substrate-specific activation, facilitating flexible design and mechanistic exploration of complex heterogeneous catalytic processes. The dual-substrate catalysis strategy realizes synergistic activation of both oxidant and pollutant via direct oxidative transfer process by employing two catalysts, achieving efficient removal of pollutants with minimal oxidant consumption.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"345-353"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-02-28DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00399-7
Zhuan Chen, Jiayi Wang, Bo Yang, Jun Li, Zhiyan Liang, Xinyue Liu, Yan Bao, Jiazhen Cao, Mingyang Xing
{"title":"Organic carbon transfer process in advanced oxidation systems for water clean-up","authors":"Zhuan Chen, Jiayi Wang, Bo Yang, Jun Li, Zhiyan Liang, Xinyue Liu, Yan Bao, Jiazhen Cao, Mingyang Xing","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00399-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00399-7","url":null,"abstract":"Although Fenton and Fenton-like technologies have long been of great interest for application to environmental remediation, the transformation and final form of pollutants during the reaction have rarely been studied in depth. Here we report a pollutant transformation process, termed organic carbon transfer process (OCTP), in a Fenton-like reaction. Compared with the Fenton reaction previously reported for treating organic wastewater, the OCTP is very different and widely observed in reaction systems. In the OCTP, as oxidation proceeds and pollutant derivatives interact, the pollutants’ polarity changes and the pollutants predominantly accumulate on the catalyst surface. The OCTP occurs during the degradation of various wastewater types and accounts for up to 90.1% of the total substances accumulated on catalyst surfaces, even during industrial wastewater treatment. The in-depth study of OCTP has to some extent revealed the main reasons for the deactivation of heterogeneous catalysts during the reaction process and provided new research directions for the future study of heterogeneous catalytic systems. While advanced oxidation processes show promise in wastewater treatment, the fate of pollutants and intermediates is yet to be understood. The organic carbon transfer process operates in many oxidation systems, and the accumulation of reaction by-products in catalyst’s surface weakens the catalytic performance.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 3","pages":"334-344"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143690317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature waterPub Date : 2025-02-21DOI: 10.1038/s44221-025-00401-2
{"title":"Solar energy for clean water and beyond","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s44221-025-00401-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44221-025-00401-2","url":null,"abstract":"By harnessing the power of the Sun, interfacial solar evaporation provides a sustainable approach to addressing water challenges, advancing the mission of ensuring clean water for everyone.","PeriodicalId":74252,"journal":{"name":"Nature water","volume":"3 2","pages":"123-123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00401-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143466273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}