World over water contamination poses a big threat and every year millions of people succumb to water related diseases.
Research Facility. Credit: Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos
The metal contaminants such as mercury dissolved in water get deposited in plants and fish. Currently, the chemicals that are used to tackle the problem are found to be expensive and are often established to be toxic themselves. The use of other natural alternatives such as sugar cane, peanut shells and sawdust did not produce the desired results.
The researchers from the Brazil located Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos have researched by mixing pulverized and dried banana peels with contaminated water and assessed how they fared in extracting heavy metals when compared to the other traditional natural alternatives. They found that banana peels absorbed copper at least 200-300% more efficiently than perlite (volcanic glass) bentonite (a clay), sawdust and peanut husks. In the case of lead, banana peels fared 42% better than peanut husks, 89% better than sawdust and 312% better than perlite. They also found that while the banana peel was more efficient in absorbing the metals than other products it also allowed the reuse of the same peels 11 times without suffering degradation. The researchers also found that repeating the process purified the water totally.
According to the researchers world over, around 100 Mt of banana is grown annually and most of them goes to landfills as waste when they really have the potential to treat waste. The researchers are also focusing their study in finding the potential of BanLec, a banana lectin to provide immunity against HIV.
Source: http://www2.ufscar.br/