Orange peels to purify water, researchers ready to clean up oceans and aqueducts – Imprint Unika

                 
                  
         

Orange peels for purifying water. Yes, the orange, or rather its waste, from problem can become a valuable resource. Apparently the list of the qualities of this fruit is ongoing. A group team of researchers led by Professor of Synthetic Chemistry Justin Chalker of Flinders University in Adelaide, with the collaboration of the Centre for Nanoscale Science and Technology at the University of Tulsa, the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Lisbon and that of Cambridge, has been conducting a study of great thickness, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition showing that, since the waste oil industry and those of citrus, you can purify the water of the oceans, and clean up the aqueducts yet the piping from contamination of mercury.

The compound identified by scientists is a polysulphide carried out starting from industrial wastes of sulfur and limonene, present in the peels of citrus fruits. It is a polymer non-toxic and inexpensive, formed by two compounds readily available. Oil plants produce in fact more than 70 million tons of sulfur per year, while the machinery dealing with the citrus produce over 50 million tons of limonene.

The sulfur-limonene acts as the glue with mercury, preventing the spread in water and soil. The goal of researchers is to use the polymer as a coating for pipes or water filters, in order to remove the metal. The operation may also be realized on a large scale, thanks to the action of extended “bed” of polymer.

There is talk of a toxic metal present in significant quantities in the waters of the world and, even if it is invisible to the naked eye, according to the allegations to research published in “Nature” of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the Wright State University, the Laboratory of Geo-Environmental Sciences of the Université Paul-Sabatier in Toulouse and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research in Den Burg, there are about 60,000 to 80,000 tons of mercury present in the ocean because of human activities.

         
         
             
                 
 
 

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