Scientists have developed a new material that they say will remove a common pollutant from water supplies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
Scientists have developed a new material that will remove a common pollutant
from water supplies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl
reports:
Atrazine is a herbicide widely used in the Midwest. The chemical makes its
way into waterways and kills plants and animals. It also makes water unsafe to
drink. Scientists at the University of Illinois have found a new way to
remove Atrazine from water supplies. They say a new chemical coating
applied to carbon fibers attracts the herbicide so well that it will make
the water safe to drink. Researcher Jim Economy says the new process is
also much cheaper:
“The original activated carbon fibers that we developed thirty years ago
cost a hundred dollars a pound. These should be, as you scale up, should
be down around several dollars a pound, if not less.”
Economy says the technology still needs to be tested on a large scale, but
he says he expects it to be in wide use in the next two years.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.