SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Waste from vegetable oil manufacturing could cheaply and effectively remove toxic heavy metals from contaminated water:

Using leftovers from sunflower and peanut oil manufacturing, a team of Singaporean and Swiss researchers have created a membrane that can effectively filter heavy metal ions from contaminated water, purifying it to international safety standards in a simple, cheap, gravity-based process needing little to no electricity.

[...] When oily seed crops or oilseeds are processed into edible oils, what remains is oilseed meal; a protein-rich by-product often thrown away or fed to animals. However, the team found that proteins extracted from oilseed meal could be shaped into amyloid fibrils, which are nanometre-sized ropes of tightly-wound protein molecules.

Amyloid fibrils have an unusually strong ability to adsorb—that is, to attract and trap—heavy metals and radioactive substances, thanks to amino acid bonds that sandwich such particles while letting water through, Miserez explained.

[...] The team found around 160 g of usable protein could be extracted from a kilo of oilseed meals. To filter an Olympic-sized swimming pool of water contaminated with 400 parts per billion (ppb) of lead—40 times the safety threshold for drinking water set by the World Health Organization—would take just 16 kg of sunflower seed protein, they estimated.

"Our protein-based membranes are created through a green and sustainable process, and require little to no power to run, making them viable for use throughout the world and especially in less developed countries," said Miserez. "Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs—as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water."

Europe needs this quick!

Journal Reference:
Wei LongSoon, Mohammad Peydayesh, Raffaele Mezzenga, and Ali Miserezad, Plant-based amyloids from food waste for removal of heavy metals from contaminated water [open], Chemical Engineering Journal, 445, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2022.136513

Original Submission