We might even protect our rivers from mining pollutants. Good news!

>>A breakthrough in the realm of wastewater treatment is promising to greatly hasten the process of removing pollutants, and do so at a fraction of the cost of existing approaches. Scientists in Australia have come up with the cheap alloy capable of stripping impurities from contaminated water, which could have great implications for industries such as textile production and mining.

The mining industry in particular is a place we have seen scientists look to improve through next-generation water treatment technologies. Mining operations produce massive amounts of wastewater packed with acids and heavy metals, while textile production results in water laden with dye pollution. Filters made from quartz fibers, reusable microbots and sun-activated nanoparticles are a few new technologies that might come to eat away at the problem.<<

https://newatlas.com/metallic-ribbons-water/56397/

PermeateFree said:

We might even protect our rivers from mining pollutants. Good news!

>>A breakthrough in the realm of wastewater treatment is promising to greatly hasten the process of removing pollutants, and do so at a fraction of the cost of existing approaches. Scientists in Australia have come up with the cheap alloy capable of stripping impurities from contaminated water, which could have great implications for industries such as textile production and mining.

The mining industry in particular is a place we have seen scientists look to improve through next-generation water treatment technologies. Mining operations produce massive amounts of wastewater packed with acids and heavy metals, while textile production results in water laden with dye pollution. Filters made from quartz fibers, reusable microbots and sun-activated nanoparticles are a few new technologies that might come to eat away at the problem.<<

https://newatlas.com/metallic-ribbons-water/56397/

Interesting!

Tau.Neutrino said:

PermeateFree said:

We might even protect our rivers from mining pollutants. Good news!

>>A breakthrough in the realm of wastewater treatment is promising to greatly hasten the process of removing pollutants, and do so at a fraction of the cost of existing approaches. Scientists in Australia have come up with the cheap alloy capable of stripping impurities from contaminated water, which could have great implications for industries such as textile production and mining.

The mining industry in particular is a place we have seen scientists look to improve through next-generation water treatment technologies. Mining operations produce massive amounts of wastewater packed with acids and heavy metals, while textile production results in water laden with dye pollution. Filters made from quartz fibers, reusable microbots and sun-activated nanoparticles are a few new technologies that might come to eat away at the problem.<<

https://newatlas.com/metallic-ribbons-water/56397/

Interesting!

from the article

According to the team’s testing, the material is efficient enough to purify water contaminated by dyes, heavy metals and organic pollutants in minutes, which is much faster than existing methods. The team says it also produces no waste throughout the process and the same material was reused up to five times in testing. Notably, they say enough alloy to clean a ton of wastewater can be made for just AUD$15 (US$10).

Follow on question.

How high does the pollution level have to be before it can be picked up by a spectroscope?

eg. “Spectrophotometers not only measure color value, but specific wavelengths of light, which help to classify exact properties of chemical components found in various water sources. Precise absorption values measurements help to identify and quantify the levels of these compounds, offering valuable information about water quality. This data can help determine the safety of drinking water and recognize toxic levels of additives that may cause a risk to human health.”

from https://www.hunterlab.com/blog/color-measurement-2/measuring-water-quality-with-spectrophotometry-the-best-approach-for-identifying-the-unknown/

For example, could you detect the level of lead, copper, zinc, silver, molybdenum naturally present in river water? What if 99% of the water was evaporated before the test?

PermeateFree said:

We might even protect our rivers from mining pollutants. Good news!

>>A breakthrough in the realm of wastewater treatment is promising to greatly hasten the process of removing pollutants, and do so at a fraction of the cost of existing approaches. Scientists in Australia have come up with the cheap alloy capable of stripping impurities from contaminated water, which could have great implications for industries such as textile production and mining.

The mining industry in particular is a place we have seen scientists look to improve through next-generation water treatment technologies. Mining operations produce massive amounts of wastewater packed with acids and heavy metals, while textile production results in water laden with dye pollution. Filters made from quartz fibers, reusable microbots and sun-activated nanoparticles are a few new technologies that might come to eat away at the problem.<<

https://newatlas.com/metallic-ribbons-water/56397/

Technical article at ttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1002%2Fadma.201802764&file=adma201802764-sup-0001-S1.pdf

“Rejuvenated Catalytic Performance in Metallic Glasses”

“Fe-based metallic glasses Fe78 Si9 B13 and Fe73.5 Si13.5 B9 Cu1 Nb3”

I would guess that the references throughout to “MB dye” are to methylene blue. That’s an organic macromolecule. The removal of methylene blue from water is the limit of this paper, but other papers refer to its usefulness in removing other dyes. See Table S3.