Popular Science gives Green Tech Grand Award to engineered molecular sponge
Getting rid of toxins in our environment has been a costly, time consuming process for years. Steward Advanced Materials Thiol-SAMMS, a white powder composed of grains of molecular sponges, is able to effectively, efficiently and inexpensively clean up wastewater. Because of its exceptional ability to clean up the environment, Popular Science has awarded it the Green Tech Grand Award for 2009.
Popular Science found that Thiol-SAMMS ability to “get mercury-contaminated water 100 times as clean as any other method, for about half the cost” made it worthy of the 2009 award. Steward Materials has an entire line of SAMMS absorbents that clean not only liquids but gases and solids too. Thiol-SAMMS was initially invented to remove mercury from liquids, suspended solids and gases. The company has also found that it works to remove “silver, gold, platinum, palladium, lead, copper, cadmium, arsenite, antimony and iodine”. The substance was actually developed at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and is licensed by Steward Materials.
The article, A Tiny Solution to a Big Problem, describes Thiol-SAMMS as a “nanoscale technology” similar to tiny sponges that absorb mercury and other materials. Those tiny sponges are extremely effective.
In powder form, a single teaspoon of Thiol-SAMMS possesses the same surface area as a football field and can absorb over half its weight in contaminants from low level waste streams…99 percent of the mercury [is] absorbed within the first five minutes…
Compared to the cost of using traditional resins or carbon disposal methods to clean 160 liters of waste water, Thiol-SAMMS is estimated to save about $3200. Part of that savings comes from the solutions ability to “immobilize” mercury or whatever the target substance is, by absorbing large amounts without “creating secondary waste”. Once a substance is absorbed by the Thiol-SAMMS it is considered nonhazardous waste, greatly reducing disposal costs.
More and more nanoscale technology is being used to create solutions for the environment. In this case, it is being used to clean deadly substances out of wastewater.
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