Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Banana Peels Remove Heavy Metals from Water

Seriously, who would have thought .... ?

-JB
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An experiment shows how banana peels can be useful for other things besides slapstick comedy. They can also clean up dissolved metals left in water by industrial waste -better than other organic materials, and they are a safer alternative to chemicals currently used.

For the study, Castro and his team dried and ground banana peels, then combined them in flasks of water with known concentrations of metals. They also built water filters out of peels and pushed water through them.

In both scenarios, "the metal was removed from the water and remained bonded to the banana peels," Castro said, adding that the extraction capacity of banana peels exceeded that of other materials used to remove heavy metals.

Link -via Look at This

(Image credit: Christina DiPaola)

http://www.neatorama.com/2011/03/16/banana-peels-remove-heavy-metals-from-water/

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Updated imagery from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan

For the latest NASA imagery showing the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, please visit the Natural Hazards section of the Earth Observatory.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/event.php?id=49622&src=eorss-ann