#203 - Water on Asteroids, Superbugs, Cruise Ships, PS-MS for PFAS & NADES
Water Water Everywhere...
Hey Readers,
This week we have innovations focused on cleaning out contaminants & a little bit of news from the world of water. Let’s get into it!
A magnet for microplastics called NADES
First the back-story - Deep eutectic solvents (DES) are a class of recently discovered solvents that are highly tunable i.e. can be modified to separate different types of chemical substances, and even participate in electrochemical processes. In recent years, there has been a push for these solvents to be less toxic and made from natural materials. Enter a sub-category of DES called natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) made from non-toxic components derived from natural materials. These NADES are generally accepted as environmentally friendly and are capable of extracting organic substances from the aqueous solutions because they are relatively cheap and less toxic as compared to the other common solvents. This team of researchers from the University of Kentucky have now looked into using hydrophobic (water-repelling) NADES to remove microplastics from water.
They tested it on plastics like polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), (which account for 10% and 8% of the global plastic production, respectively 12,13). These plastics in their micro- and nano particulate forms are commonly found in the marine environments. They found that NADES made of decanoic acid:menthol (at 1:1 and 1:2 ratios) outperformed NADES made of thymol:menthol (at 1:1 ratio) in extracting plastics with extraction efficiency all over the place i.e. 50–93% based on the plastic polymer it was exposed to. For extra context they shared the time-lapse above, where in Figure 1, the PET plastic particles are in aqueous solution. In Figure 2 NADES and PET plastic particles in aqueous solution before mixing. In Figure 3 we see the mixture of NADES with PET plastic particles in aqueous solution right after mixing, and in Figure 4 the PET plastic particles have migrated to NADES after phase separation.
New Jersey Institute of Technology chemists have demonstrated a new lab-based method to detect traces of PFAS from food packaging material, water and soil samples in just three minutes or less. How you say? - their system involves an ionization technique for analyzing the molecular composition of sample materials called paper spray mass spectrometry (PS-MS), which they say is 10-100 times more sensitive than the current standard technique for PFAS testing.
What is PS-MS? - A technique used in mass spectrometry to produce ions from a sample to be analyzed. The sample (in this case PFAS-contaminated water or blood or urine) is applied to a piece of paper and solvent is added. Then a high voltage is applied, which creates charged ions which can be analyzed with a mass spectrometer. While still only lab-tested, when the PFAS is ionized this way, a high-resolution mass spectrometer, gives a clear view of each PFAS species present and the degree of contamination down to a parts-per-trillion (ppt) level. As a next step, this rapid detection method is being tested for use alongside cutting-edge techniques for remediating PFAS that are being developed in their institution.
In what will be news to absolutely nobody - cruise ships continue to pollute the waterways, though it is nice to see the EPA trying to clean things up.
A study which was commissioned by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency, found widespread contamination of Irish water with superbugs resistant to current treatment methods. While grave news, the solutions currently proposed involve continued monitoring to better inform policies designed to protect public health. (you cannot make this stuff up!)
And finally for this week, the news making all the rounds was that scientists detected water molecules on the surfaces of the asteroids Iris and Massalia. Using data from the now-grounded Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), they analyzed four silicate-rich asteroids captured by SOFIA's Faint Object InfraRed Camera (FORCAST) instrument.
While the scientists say this will deepen our understanding of the cosmos, it reminded this author of various science fiction concepts, like this one and this one, and how can we forget Dune!
With our sci-fi jollies out of the way, that is it for us this Friday,
Until next week,
Peace!