Researchers develop porous crystals from plants to purify pharmaceutical-polluted water
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Stockholm University researchers have teamed up to develop porous crystals from pomegranate extract to help purify water from pharmaceutical pollutants. The porous crystals will degrade pharmaceutical molecules found in the local municipal wastewater leading to a cleaner and better environment.
Although pharmaceutical products and compounds help improve our overall health, there’s also a chance that they could cause problems for wildlife, especially the creatures in the waters.
Porous materials that behave like sponges are popular in removing pollutants from water. Metal-organic frameworks or popularly called MOFs, are a type of nanoporous material. This material is made up of organic molecules and metal ions.
Interestingly, as opposed to the popular MOFs that are developed using synthetic organic molecules, researchers from the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University have developed new porous MOFs by using ellagic acid, which is a naturally occurring molecule found in plants.
Erik Svensson Grape, Ph.D. student at the University’s Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, noted that Ellagic acid is one of the main building units of naturally occurring polyphenols known as tannins. They are common in tree bark, nuts, berries, and fruits.
“By combining ellagic acid, which was extracted from either pomegranate peel or tree bark, with zirconium ions, we developed a new highly porous MOF which we named SU-102,” he said.
Test showed excellent results
To test the performance of the newly developed SU-102, an already purified water at a local wastewater treatment facility was further treated with the MOF. Upon analysis of the result, the SU-102 further removed a lot of the pharmaceutical pollutants that the facility did not fully remove.
Aside from capturing the pollutants in the water, the researchers used the newly developed SU-102 to break down pollutants by using light in a process called photodegradation.
Erik Svensson noted that the project has been exciting as they got the opportunity to use water samples directly from the treatment facility. “We hope one day that SU-102 will be used on a bigger scale and also for other environmental applications,” he said.
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