Water is life. Knowledge is power.
It is not uncommon to find aluminum in municipal water systems. It’s part of a treatment chemical used in some water treatment processes. Recently, however, it has been discovered in lead scale, deposits that form on lead water pipes.
The aluminum presence in pipes is both unsurprising and, in the quantities researchers saw in water pipes, not … [more…]
Photo: A scanning electron microscope image shows microplastic particles (measuring 100 nanometers each) attached to the nanocellulose "mesh" VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
While no one likes seeing plastic waste floating in our waterways, tiny unseen "microplastic" particles are also a threat to the aquatic environment – and to human health. A new study now suggests that a material known as nanocellulose could be used to remove them from … [more…]
Image: When phenols, compounds that are commonly found in drinking water, mix with chlorine, hundreds of unknown, potentially toxic byproducts are formed. Credit: Marissa Lanterman/Johns Hopkins University
Mixing drinking water with chlorine, the United States’ most common method of disinfecting drinking water, creates previously unidentified toxic byproducts, says Carsten Prasse from Johns Hopkins University and his collaborators from the University of California, Berkeley and Switzerland.
The researchers’ findings were published … [more…]
Photo: Clarkson University professors Tom Holsen and Selma Mededovic in front of a plasma reactor. Clarkson University
As the state gears up for wider testing of public water systems for potentially harmful chemicals, civilian researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base believe they may be closing in on a new weapon in the battle against toxic water.
Researchers at the base recently completed a two-week field demonstration of a plasma technology they say destroys potentially harmful chemicals perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid — also known as “PFOS” and … [more…]