How Nanotech Can Meet The Poor's Water Needs

From SciDev.net:

Nanotechnology holds huge potential for supplying clean water to the world's poor, but many challenges must be overcome to realise it.

When the economist Fritz Schumacher coined the phrase "small is beautiful" more than 30 years ago, he was hoping to promote "intermediate technologies" that focus on local techniques, knowledge and materials, rather than high-tech solutions to problems facing the world's poor.

But more recently, the phrase has taken on a different meaning as scientists and engineers develop nanotechnology — processes to control matter at an atomic or molecular level — and show that this field, too, can promote sustainable development.

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