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“Water, water everywhere!” This is the kind of innovation we’d like our hard earned taxes to go into, rather than things which cause harm, right?
Researchers in Sweden have developed a more eco-friendly way to remove heavy metals, dyes and other pollutants from water. The answer lies in filtering wastewater with a gel material taken from plant cellulose and spiked with small carbon dots produced in a microwave oven.
Reporting in the journal Sustainable Marials and Technologies, researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, in collaboration with Politecnico di Torino, engineered a more sustainable technique for producing hydrogel composites, a type of material that is wteidely studied for wastewater decontamination.
Minna Hakkarainen, who leads the Division of Polymer Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, says that the hydrogels remove contaminants such as heavy metal ions, dyes and other common pollutants….
Our route is based on common bio-based raw materials and significantly milder processes with less impact on the environment.”
Minna Hakkarainen, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Read the whole story on Phys.org purification system engineered from wood, with help from a microwave oven