With mercury contamination of water a global problem and removal measures often too difficult or expensive in developing countries, experts from Flinders University South Australia have developed a new extraction material capable of quickly binding almost all mercury in polluted water.
Tests showed that the sorbent, made entirely from low-cost waste from petroleum, citrus, and agricultural production, achieves almost total absorption of mercury in a minute under trial conditions.
Co-author of the study, Dr Max Worthington of Flinders University’s Chalker Lab, said in a release on Wednesday that the new sorbent was created by coating silica with sulphur and limonene—a chemical combination already shown to effectively absorb waste mercury….