Graphene Making Seawater Potable

Actually, graphene oxide. Water molecules clump around cations and anions in solution, the negative oxygen sticking to the cations and the positive hydrogen sticking to the anions. These clumps are too big to fit through the sieve.

Graphene oxide tends to swell in the water making the holes in the sieve too large. My understanding is that the breakthrough was immobilizing the graphene oxide sheets with epoxy to prevent this swelling.

sounds swell to me

You still need to overcome the osmotic pressure difference between seawater and freshwater, which can be around 40 bar.

In any event, it might be made into a usable technology to remove diverse contaminants or pollutants from otherwise fresh water. But at what cost?

If it's below 3.5kWh/m3 it will compete with existing membrane technology.