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a team of chemists, lead by Dr Justin Chalker at Flinders University in South Australia, has developed a new material to permanently remove mercury from soil and water.
It's called Sulfur-Limonene Polysulfide, or SLP for short.
"SLP is a polymer that looks like red rubber, and is made quite cheaply from industrial by-products," said Dr Chalker. "We can make it into any shape we want."
As its full name suggests, SLP is manufactured from sulfur – a by-product of the crude oil industry – and limonene, which is found in orange peel and an unused waste material from the citrus industry. Both components are readily and cheaply available, making SLP a highly sustainable product.
"To make the SLP polymer, we melt the sulfur, and add limonene to it and then can coat devices or make it into any shape we like," said Dr Chalker.
By lining storage containers with SLP, Dr Chalker and his colleagues have successfully removed mercury from river and pond water, and soil.
The material can transform water from toxic to nearly drinkable, with concentrations of mercury reduced a thousand fold, from several parts per million down to only several parts per billion.
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Tuesday October 20 2015, @03:08PM
Agreed. If you could break this stuff down and recover mercury, you could have a nice little business.
Wonder what other materials are like to this for what other heavy metals?
Hal Clement had a neat bit in his short story “The Mechanic” which had mankind mining the oceans using genetically engineered lifeforms to filter heavy metals (gold was the specific example) from ocean water as a part of their “pseudo-life” process.