One issue that plagues both developing countries and poor neighborhoods is a lack of access to potable water, because local sources are contaminated with hazardous materials such as lead. While many methods of removal have been developed over the years, one has been garnering a lot of attention is the use of MoS2 nanosheets to remove these metals from water sources. The reason why is because MoS2 nanosheets have shown the ability to bind both organic and inorganic hazards, giving it a high level of flexibility in its use. The technique that is used to create the nanosheets is to mix two solutions of l-cysteine in water along with sodium molybdate dihydrate in water, afterwards the pH was set to 2 and the solution was put into a hydrothermal reactor. This reactor would then heat over the course of 24 hours, afterwards the solution would be allowed to cool and be poured over a nylon membrane and drain naturally over 2 hours. The benefits of this particular method is the fact that there is a lot of opportunity to change aspects of the procedure, in this experiment nylon membranes are used instead of PVDF. In addition this procedure is going to be tested on metal removal as opposed to removal of organic hazards. The main benefits of working with MoS2 nanosheets is that it is cost effective to work with because the materials needed to form the sheets are inexpensive to buy. Future testing of this method can be used to determine if the nanosheets being formed can be used for point of use applications at the common house.

MoS2 layers to extract metals

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