Imagine a world where clean drinking water is accessible to all, thanks to the wonders of graphene foam. This revolutionary material is not only lightweight and durable, but also capable of filtering out harmful toxins, transforming the way we approach water purification.
Uranium pollution
Leaching into water resources from mining operations, nuclear waste sites, or from natural subterranean deposits, the element can now be found flowing out of taps worldwide
- Even small concentrations are bad for human health
- A team led by Ju Li has devised a highly efficient method for removing uranium from drinking water
- Applying an electric charge to graphene oxide foam, the researchers can capture uranium in solution, which precipitates out as a condensed solid crystal
- Within hours, our process can purify a large quantity of drinking water below the EPA limit for uranium
Potential Applications
In the future, instead of a passive water filter, we could be using a smart filter powered by clean electricity that turns on electrolytic action which could extract multiple toxic metals, tell you when to regenerate the filter, and give you quality assurance about the water you’re drinking.”
Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University, and the University of Tokyo also participated in the research.
A paper describing this work was published in this week Advanced Materials. The two first co-authors are Helal and Chao Wang, a postdoc at MIT during the study who is now with the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai.
Targeting the contaminant
Field testing from the U.S. Geological Service and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed unhealthy levels of uranium moving into reservoirs and aquifers from natural rock sources in the northeastern United States, from ponds and pits storing old nuclear weapons and fuel in places like Hanford, Washington, and from mining activities located in many western states
- An alarming number of these sites show uranium concentrations close to or above the EPA’s recommended ceiling of 30 parts per billion (ppb)-a level linked to kidney damage, cancer risk, and neurobehavioral changes in humans.
- The critical challenge lay in finding a practical remediation process exclusively sensitive to uranium, capable of extracting it from solution without producing toxic residues.
