century of millions of gallon of radioactive piddle remain sitting around the website of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi atomic cataclysm in Japan . But scientists ca n’t simply ditch the liquid into the ocean , and if it continues pose around , it could seep into the soil .
A team of scientists from Rice University in Texas and Kazan University in Russia have a cagy idea to get the radioactive strontium and cesium out of the urine — a cheap material called oxidatively modified carbon copy ( OMC ) . They think that an OMC filtration system could purify the water enough to safely pour it into the ocean and prevent any further contamination .
You ’ve probably listen of carbon or charcoal filtration systems , but those filters do n’t work well on the lowering metals in radioactive water . The same squad of scientists have in thepast reportedthat a material called graphene oxide could filter out one rough-cut radioactive element , strontium , but not another one , caesium . Plus , graphene oxide is reasonably expensive . That brought the researchers to OMC , which is ten times cheaper than graphene oxide and can be bring out from a commercial atomic number 6 coke source called C - seal - F , or from “ shungite , ” a course occurring stone in Northwestern Russia .
The scientist created OMC filter from both germ by address them with acids , giving the material atomic number 8 - fat surfaces for the metallic element contaminants to adhere to . They passed urine spike with strontium , caesium and other heavy metals through the OMC preparations , and found that 800 milligram of the hundred - Navy SEAL - F OMC stripped 83 percent of the caesium and 68 pct of the Sr from 100 milliliters of water . The shungite OMC sucked up 70 pct of the cesium and 47 percent of the atomic number 38 , according tothe paperpublished last workweek in the journal Carbon , for all your carbon indigence .
The scientist tested their filter on non - radioactive versions of strontium and cesium . However , that should n’t alter anything . “ That ’s the beautiful matter about radioactivity . It would be exactly the same , ” James Tour , semisynthetic constitutional chemist at Rice University , tell Gizmodo . “ It ’s just mussy to meditate . ”
While this research is a proof of concept , Tour say he ’d antecedently pitched Japanese companies in charge of cleaning on graphene oxide . He hopes that they ’ll take note of OMC . “ It ’s so simple that it could be scaled and put in a filtration scheme in 6 months . ”
This postal service has been updated to admit a quote from James Tour .
[ CarbonviaRice University ]
ChemistryFiltersFukushimaPhysicsScience
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