Heavy Metal Water Decontamination System Unveiled

US-based researchers have developed a technology capable of extracting water-based heavy metals.

Working at Rhode Island's Brown University, they've reportedly managed to dilute down concentrations of three metals - copper, nickel and cadmium - in samples of water with levels of contamination well above the safety thresholds set by the US Government.

The technique they've used is capable of being scaled up and represents a commercially viable proposition, particularly for environmental radiation purposes.

A large number of industrial and manufacturing process result in heavy metals being released into groundwater and consequently posing an environmental health risk.

Contaminated Water: Metal Extraction

With this in mind, the Brown University researchers have been employing a contaminated water metal extraction technique that harnesses the CEP (Cyclic Electrowinning/ Precipitation) system. This can extract all but one per cent of the cadmium, nickel and copper content in contaminated water, effectively then bringing it in line with the standards set by US officials.

"This approach produces very large volume reductions from the original contaminated water by electrochemical reduction of the ions to zero-valent metal on the surfaces of the cathodic particles", the CEP system researchers state, in a study on their new approach to water decontamination. "For an initial 10 ppm ion concentration of the metals considered, the volume reduction is on the order of 106."

Heavy Metal Water Decontamination

According to the researchers, besides the three substances involved in the initial heavy metal water decontamination system tests, others, like mercury, tin and lead, could also be treated in the same way.

Of the three metals so far trialled, cadmium can bring on stomach pains and instances of extreme vomiting in the short-term plus, potentially, long-term reproductive system damage and psychological disorders. Mercury, meanwhile, and compounds featuring mercury, are capable of causing brain and kidney damage and interrupting normal levels of memory, vision and hearing.

Funding for the Rhode Island-based water decontamination research was supplied by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences - a US National Institutes of Health division.

Image copyright US EPA