Submitted via IRC for chromas
Sustainable sand pulls pollutants from stormwater
UC Berkeley engineers have developed a mineral-coated sand that can soak up toxic metals like lead and cadmium from water. Along with its ability to destroy organic pollutants like bisphenol A, this material could help cities tap into stormwater, an abundant but underused water source.
The team's findings were published recently in the journal Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology.
Researchers knew that the naturally occurring minerals they coated onto sand could react with organic contaminants like pesticides in stormwater. However, the ability of the coated sand to also remove harmful metals during filtration could unlock urban water supplies that had been written off. Cities with Mediterranean climates, like Los Angeles, could store stormwater underground during wet winters, where it could serve as an inexpensive, local supply during the dry season. But this resource has gone mostly untapped because stormwater picks up toxic chemicals as it runs through streets and gutters.
"The pollutants that hold back the potential of this water source rarely come one at a time," said study lead author Joe Charbonnet, who conducted this research as a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering. "It makes sense that we fight back with a treatment technology that has these impressive double abilities to take out both toxic metals and organics. We suspected that the mineral-coated sand was special, but the way it continues to impress us with multiple capabilities is rather extraordinary."
The use of manganese oxide-coated sand for the removal of trace metal ions from stormwater, Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology (DOI: 10.1039/C9EW00781D)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday December 18 2019, @02:29PM
Isn't manganese the element that was pushed a while back as a replacement for lead in gasoline, being in the same chemical family? And wasn't that mostly to evade regulations about lead in gasoline, rather than there being any good evidence that it was safer then lead?
Will we soon have an issue with manganese in our environment?
I'd welcome real answers. Please don't propagate the questions as disguised answers.