In a recent PCCP paper, scientists have shown that graphene oxide has a surprising ability to quickly remove radioactive material from contaminated water.
This exciting article, by James Tour, Stepan Kalmykov and co-workers, has been featured in Futurity, UPI.com and Business Standard.
They found that atom-thick flakes of graphene oxide can bind quickly to natural and human-made radionuclides and condense them into solids for easy removal from contaminated water. The flakes are soluble in liquids and easily produced in bulk.
Although detection of radionuceotide contamination is relatively simple, their removal from aqueous media is significantly challenging and costly. It is hoped that the findings from this collaborative effort from researchers at Rice University and Lomonosov Moscow State could be put into use in the cleanup of contaminated sites like the Fukushima nuclear plants damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Read this HOT PCCP article today:
Graphene oxide for effective radionuclide removal
Anna Yu. Romanchuk, Alexander S. Slesarev, Stepan N. Kalmykov, Dmitry V. Kosynkin and James M. Tour
DOI: 10.1039/C2CP44593J
