Tag: particle

Report Finds Cleaner Air Out There

  • According to a recent report, a decade of cleanup measures to reductions in emissions have paid off in cutting levels of deadly particle and ozone pollution. (Photo courtesy of the NREL)

A new report finds some of the cities with the worst air pollution are breathing a little easier. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new report finds some of the cities with the worst air pollution are breathing a little easier. Lester Graham reports.

The American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report uses the latest data from 2006, 2007 and 2008. That’s just before the economy really tanked. Janice Nolan is with the American Lung Association. She says even though factories were still running at full tilt, improvement in air quality was seen across the nation. Particularly in cities the group watches closely.

“We’ve tracked some of the 25 most polluted cities each year to see how they’re faring and in each case we saw significant improvement in most of the cities in those twenty-five.”

Nolan says cleaner diesel fuel and new less polluting trucks… along with some improvements at coal-burning power plants helped. But she says other dirtier coal-burning plants and older diesel trucks continue to pollute the air.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Using Rust to Remove Arsenic From Water

  • Scientists have been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water (Source: Roger McLassus at Wikimedia Commons)

You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:

Transcript

You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:

You can’t see, smell, or taste arsenic – but prolonged exposure to it can lead to skin discoloration and even cancer.

Vicki Colvin studies chemistry and nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston.

She says arsenic has a chemical bond with rust – and sticks to it. So they’ve been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water in the lab.

Now Colvin says they’re working with a city in Mexico. They’re trying to make what they call nano-rust in the field, so the city can cheaply remove arsenic from its water.

“So, we’ve developed procedures and processes that help people make nano-rust not at a major university with a nanotechnology facilty. But you know literally in a restaurant setting, more maybe in a ceramics factory.”

Colvin says they will be experimenting in Mexico over the next two years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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