Close X
Monday, November 11, 2024
ADVT 
Interesting

Cigarette ash can remove arsenic from water

Darpan News Desk IANS, 16 Oct, 2014 10:49 AM
    Discarded cigarette ash can help remove deadly arsenic from water, finds a new study.
     
    While the technology for removing arsenic from water exists and is in widespread use in industrialised areas, it is expensive and impractical for rural and developing regions.
     
    Recognising that the porous structure of cigarette ash could be better suited to this purpose, scientists decided to test it.
     
    In a simple and inexpensive one-step method, the researchers prepared cigarette ash with a coating of aluminium oxide.
     
    When they tested the material with contaminated ground water, they found it removed more than 96 percent of the arsenic, reducing its levels to below the standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
     
    "Because cigarette ashes are discarded in countries around the world and can be easily collected in places where public smoking is allowed, it could be part of a low-cost solution for a serious public health issue," said lead researcher Jiaxing Li in a paper that appeared in the journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.
     
    Scientists have been exploring the use of natural waste materials such as banana peels and rice hulls for removing arsenic from water but these so far have shown limited efficiency.
     
    The odourless and tasteless element can cause skin discolouration, stomach pain, partial paralysis and a range of other serious health problems.

    MORE Interesting ARTICLES

    Is that a 'traffic signal' on Mars?

    Is that a 'traffic signal' on Mars?
    Are aliens using traffic signal to cross roads on Red Planet? Fun apart, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has clicked a picture on the Martian surface that resembles a “traffic signal”.

    Is that a 'traffic signal' on Mars?

    Men with bulging bellies last longer in bed

    Men with bulging bellies last longer in bed
    Do not be ashamed of your bulging belly any more during sex. A fascinating research shows that men with larger bellies perform much longer between the sheets...

    Men with bulging bellies last longer in bed

    Yoga and meditation help people use gadgets better

    Yoga and meditation help people use gadgets better
    In recent years, there has been a lot of attention on improving the computer side of the brain-computer interface but very little attention to the brain side....

    Yoga and meditation help people use gadgets better

    Saudi man divorces wife for not closing car door

    Saudi man divorces wife for not closing car door
    The couple reportedly went out on a picnic and when they returned home, the wife got out, helped their children to do so and then moved to go into the...

    Saudi man divorces wife for not closing car door

    Media multi-tasking could change brain structure

    Media multi-tasking could change brain structure
    Jumping from screen to screen - using mobile phones, laptops and other media devices simultaneously - could be changing the structure of your brain...

    Media multi-tasking could change brain structure

    Educated women less inclined to use dialectal words

    Educated women less inclined to use dialectal words
    Though the study focused on a group of speakers in a single Italian region, the modelling methods used could be applied to predict how geography and...

    Educated women less inclined to use dialectal words