Sydney, Aug 25 - Researchers have found a way to speed up desalination five times, with the help of nanotubes made of boron and nitrogen. Desalination and demineralisation can help overcome the acute water crisis that affects a fourth of the global population.

Nanotech-based water purification devices, developed by Australian National University researchers Tamsyn Hilder, Dan Gordon and Shin-Ho Chung, from its Research School of Biology, can drastically cut down desalination costs while making it more effective.

'Boron nitride nanotubes can be thought of as a hollow cylindrical tube made up of boron and nitrogen atoms,' said Hilder. 'These nanotubes are incredibly small... 10,000 times thinner than a single human hair.'

'Current desalination methods force seawater through a filter using energies four times larger than necessary. Throughout the desalination process salt must be removed from one side of the filter to avoid the need to apply even larger energies,' Hilder said.