Introduction and Background - About Water: Novel Water Technologies in the New Millennium

Abstract

A year ago, May 24, 2019 was the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. Visionary water projects on a grand scale were one of his lifelong passions. They were never fulfilled. Substantia offers this volume on new water technologies that work, in celebration of the life of da Vinci, the artist and genius of Florence. These technologies are simple and cheap. They embrace desalination, sterilization of wastewater, including killing of viruses, selective heavy metal ion removal and harvesting. And a simple solution to a major world economic problem. that of cavitation in ship propellers. Our claims are startling and apply to real world conditions, that is, in concentrated and complex environments. They are not restricted to ideal, dilute solutions. They are presently inexplicable within the confines and boundaries of classical physical and colloid chemistry. It has been increasingly apparent that this venerable enabling discipline that underpins chemical engineering and biology suffers from sins of omission and commission. Once those strictures are removed whole new opportunities open up. Examples of these we want to exhibit here.