Banana Peels Remove Heavy Metals from Water

An experiment shows how banana peels can be useful for other things besides slapstick comedy. They can also clean up dissolved metals left in water by industrial waste -better than other organic materials, and they are a safer alternative to chemicals currently used.

For the study, Castro and his team dried and ground banana peels, then combined them in flasks of water with known concentrations of metals. They also built water filters out of peels and pushed water through them.

In both scenarios, “the metal was removed from the water and remained bonded to the banana peels,” Castro said, adding that the extraction capacity of banana peels exceeded that of other materials used to remove heavy metals.

Link -via Look at This

(Image credit: Christina DiPaola)