A new gel for soaking up heavy metals
The journal Science has a paper about a new material — a kind of aerogel filter — that can soak up heavy metals, such as mercury and lead, from water. It remains unclear, however, whether this approach would be made economical. “The aerogels described in the Science paper could never be used for environmental clean-up tasks,” according to a BBC story. “They contain a platinum metal group which would make them far too expensive.” But the story goes on to say that researchers have already made gels with similar properties that use a cheaper alternative to platinum.
It would be nice to have a superior way to capture heavy metals from soil, water and smokestacks. Apparently, this approach would also work for PCBs and dioxins.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca