Plastic Water

In a stuffy study, walls lined with heavy, well-thumbed tomes, sitting at the side and not behind a large desk, was Doctor Colin Thwaite, facing half a dozen eager faced first year students, straight out of some Sixth Form College. They were all there, which was not much of a surprise since this was the second tutorial of the term and they hadn’t yet settled into bad ways. The students sat in a half circle around him, on hard backed chairs, especially selected by him for their discomfiture. No chance of anyone having a quick snooze or a daydream. The purpose of the meeting was to assign topics for the next essay and Dr. Thwaite had proposed something general that they should consider, on ‘the benefits of science,’ especially chemistry to mankind.

The purpose was simply to check out their style and ingenuity of research rather than any depth of knowledge. They discussed the possible options, with the Doctor prompting each student to make an aural contribution and adding a few topics himself for general digestion. It was difficult to get them to open up and say more than a few words. They were all no doubt still in awe of the eminent Doctor Thwaite, who had turned down a Professorship and plumped for a lowly research and teaching post.

“Sir, can I ask you a question?” asked a diminutive student looking shy and hiding behind large glass bottomed spectacles.

“Of course, ask anything. It is Simon, isn’t it?” prompted Dr. Thwaite.

“Yes Sir. I was just wondering, and I hope you don’t mind me asking. Have you Dr. Thwaite, done anything to benefit mankind?”

“A very good question Simon. I think all scientists hope to come up, through their research, something that falls into that category. Occasionally, if not frequently, as in the case of Dr. Noble and his TNT, we may end up with something that eventually has adverse reaction. I presume Simon you are asking a personal question and I am not ashamed to answer. As yet, I have only produced research that has advanced science but nothing that I can consider has had any impact directly on our lives that I know of. Does that answer your question, Simon?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Sir, do you ever hope to discover anything that will benefit our lives directly?”

“Well Judith much of that kind of discovery goes on in the Commercial Labs. My kind of research tends to promote the advancement of science for science sake and yes there may be spin offs. Yes Daniel?”

“Sir, how does that take place? What I mean is how does the academic stuff turn into commercial stuff?”

“We publish our findings in Journals and the commercial world trawls these hoping to find items that complement their work. Some Universities actually have commercial departments that convert their research into saleable commodities. That earns them money and keeps the fees down.”

“Are you working on anything at this moment that might be saleable Sir?”

“Sorry to disappoint you Richard my current research is just aimed at extending knowledge on the properties of certain substances. I’m not sure there will be any commercial value in that at this moment in time, or even in the future.”

“Isn’t that pointless Sir? I mean in general Sir. I’m not criticising you research Sir?”

“Pointless David? I haven’t though of it in those terms. You will find that the more you learn in depth about a topic or a subject you discover that there are more unanswered questions than you ever dreamt of. You’ve only started to scratch the surface and you want to find out more and more and that’s where my work kicks in. I hope that answers some of your queries?” said Dr. Thwaite looking around at the still eager faces. “Sorry our time is up. Please either Email your essays or hand the hard copies to my secretary before next Thursday and we will discuss them at our next tutorial.”

“Hi Colin, how are you doing with that bunch of first years?” asked Professor Adams over lunch.

“They are eager beavers for the moment and haven’t yet learned the wicked ways of University life.”

“I don’t know why you do it Colin? Doesn’t it get in the way of your own work? A kind of unnecessary interruption.”

“Sometimes, but it can be quite interesting and I can always bluff my way and say it’s rewarding. Do you know what a student asked me today? He had the cheek to ask me what good is my research if it doesn’t benefit mankind. Not in those words but that was the gist.”

“How did you answer that or did you just give him one of your glares?”

“No, I actually tried to answer the question. I don’t think I was very convincing. I waffled on about the greater good for academia and all that crap.”

“Maybe you should change to something more commercial Colin. Anything to improve our University balance sheets would get my approval. Changing water into some decent wine would go down nicely for a start. This stuff they serve us here is dreadful.”

Dr. Colin Thwaite couldn’t settle to his work that afternoon. The questions the students asked him that morning irked him and made him uncomfortable. Instead of continuing with his report he skipped onto the internet and Googled various topics on the most important needs of the world today, in various ways. The responses he got amounted to the facts that the most essential item to the majority of the world’s population were secure food supplies and potable water. Water reminded him of Professor Adams’ suggestion that he should turn water into wine, so he investigated water sites in more depth. There was a mass of information, most of it depressing. The key elements he found were that the world had plenty of water but most of it, like sea water was essentially unusable and more was simply polluted. There also seemed to be a massive mismatch between those that needed clean water most, in the developing world and those that misused it in the Western world. After much searching and pondering Colin picked his desk phone and speed dialled a number.

“Hi Harold, how are you this fine day?”

“Oh, it’s you Colin. Haven’t heard from you since you gave that seminar in Oxford. I’m keeping well. What do I owe the pleasure of this phone call? Pleasure, I hope. You are going to invite me to one of your clan dinners and yes, I will come.”

“No such luck Harold. I have just been checking up on your Company website and you seem to be doing a lot on Hydrology, especially potable water. Tell me more Harold.”

“Not a lot to tell Colin. A few years ago, the Government had a scare that we would all be dying of thirst, so they told the Water Companies to get their house in order and basically commissioned us to do some work on getting sea water into a drinkable state.”

“That was years ago Harold. Things have moved on since then.”

“I’m glad you’ve noticed Colin, there in your rarefied atmosphere. The Water Companies plugged their leaks and God decided to punish us all with wet Summers. That solved that for the moment.”

“Yes, but you still seem to have Government contracts on the go or haven’t you bothered to update your website for a while Harold?”

“Temper, temper Colin, I’m coming to that. We have a few permanent contracts with the Government, bless their cotton socks, to do with water but it’s largely to do with purification. EU legislation dictates that each Government is actively pursuing work on purification and water conservation. Most of our work is with sewage, converting piss to drinking water to put it politely. Do you know Colin that if you every drink a glass of water in London, at least three other people have drunk the same water before? That’s why I stick to beer brewed in Burton. Even that is suspect these days.”

“OK, I get the picture. How many people have you got working on this subject?”

“Well, if you mean purification then I can say a large Department plus we farm out some of the research. What’s your angle on this Colin?”

“I was wondering if you had any vacancies in that field?”

“What, have you got an able student you want to place?”

“No Harold, me. I want to change direction and I’m interested in water purification.”

“What, you leaving the cushy world of Academia and joining the Capitalist rat race? What’s in it for you Colin?”

“I don’t really know Harold but I feel I’m getting stale and need to get out to the sharp end where things mean something.”

“What you mean is Colin, you want to come up with a Chemical, Patent it and live off the royalties for the rest of your life.”

“That would be nice especially if the royalties were large. It would mean I had come up with something very useful at least. Look I can commit a couple of years if need be.”

“OK Colin I’ll talk to the Board Members and see if we can find you a position. It will look good to have your scalp on our listings. Now tell me, have you gone through any head-hunters on this, any agencies?”

“No Harold, you were my first tentative phone call. Why do you ask?”

“These guys are immensely expensive and if they handed you to us on their plate they would demand the earth, up to two years of your salary. Without that encumbrance we can offer you a better contract. Give me a few days and I’ll get back to you Colin.”

Within six months Dr. Colin Thwaite had switched from dusty Academia to a commercial research post with a Chemical Engineering Company in Reading. His specific task was to set up a team to find a cheap way of turning sea water, or polluted water into fresh water through the use of osmosis as used very successfully by growing plants. This was nothing new but he was tasked to find a strong solution that would draw water through a semi-permeable membrane that could be cheaply removed, leaving pure water behind. Secondly it had to be commercially viable and with a high-volume output. Reverse Osmosis had been long discounted as being too expensive, so Colin’s team were researching all the various processes and chemical solutions to find an answer.

His first difficulty was to find a suitable plastic membrane that only allowed water through and not other chemicals and that’s where he placed his own work priority. He worked with plastic manufactures to come up with a suitable efficient material that was cheap to produce. This task proved more difficult than he had envisaged. Artificial semi-permeable membrane were commercially available but were either not robust enough or expensive to manufacture to the tolerances Colin required. He set up his own lab to research the field of plastics. He eventually produced a plastic that had the properties he desired but tended to absorb the water until it disintegrated. This was of little use for commercial purposes and in his lab, he poured the remnants into a tray to set and be disposed of.

The following day he found the plastic had hardened and stuck to the tray, so to soften it, he poured some water into the tray. Coming back to the tray later he found that all the water had been absorbed by the plastic but it was still stuck. Knowing that it would eventually disintegrate he added even more water which again was absorbed. As he wrenched the plastic out of the tray he found the water oozing out in his grip. He found that interesting, so he put the plastic layer in a larger tray with a weight on top. Quickly the water was squeezed out. This interested him so having squeezed out all the water he placed the plastic sheet into a saline solution and watched it absorb the water and grow. Salt residues formed on the top so he swilled them off and after squeezing the plastic again he found he had pure water in the tray.

This was a Eurekamoment for him and he tested his plastic sheet to almost destruction. He found it quite robust and would only start to show signs of stress and break up after absorbing more than ten times its volume of water. He switched a team of researchers onto this phenomenon who tested the properties of his new plastic and found that indeed they had a breakthrough. In the lab they created strips of this plastic, dragged it slowly through any solution and it would easily absorb just the water, leaving the residues. After washing the plastic strips to remove any adhering impurities they could then stick the strips through an ordinary washing mangle, obtained from a curio shop, and squeeze out pure water. The most important point was that the plastic strips were undamaged and could be reused, over and over again.

Immediately the Company applied for a patent and an engineering team was set the task of converting the laboratory discovery into a workable commercial product. A large test rig was built to check the process. This looked like a ski cable pommel lift with fronds of plastic attached to a lead. These were dragged through a trough of saline solution then through another trough of clean rinsing water and then a power shower arrangement to wash off the impurities. The strips were then led through a series of industrial mangles that squeezed the pure water out. While tests were being carried out on the rig Colin and his team made attempts to modify the plastic so that it would shed the residue quickly and reduce the amount of redundant water needed to wash off the impurities, from the surface of the plastic strips.

The Engineering Team quickly came up with plans for a series of these plants depending on the quantity of water required by the eventual customer. Dr. Colin Thwaite was very proud of his development and hoped that a number of Developing Countries would be interested and purchase the final article. He was to be deeply disappointed. The interest was high but only the rich Western Governments and Water Companies commissioned these plants, mainly to turn liquid effluent into water and disposable residues, rather than using sea water as the base ingredient. The Developing Nations found the initial capital costs too high even though this was the cheapest way of producing potable water for their people.

Dr. Colin Thwaite was disillusioned, disappointed and dismayed. After his term of contract had expired, he returned to the world of Academia where he could pursue his own interest without aspiring to a commercial bent. He was happy to consider the initial question posed to him a few years ago by his students, which could be answered with a positive statement and some degree of dissatisfaction.