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Banana Peels Remove Heavy Metals from Water
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Banana Peels Remove Heavy Metals from Water
Is That a Banana in Your Water?
New science shows peels can remove heavy metals from water.
Main Content
This picture was taking at a Banana Plantation in Costa Rica. While I was there we got to walk around the plantation and see how everything was done. It was really neat to see how much time it took to get all of the bananas ready for shipment.
A banana plantation in Costa Rica.
Christina DiPaola
Anne Minard
for National Geographic News
Published March 11, 2011
This story is part of a National Geographic News series on global water issues.
Banana peels are no longer just for composting or comedy shows: New science shows they can pull heavy metal contamination from river water.
Metals such as lead and copper are introduced to waterways from a variety of sources, including agricultural runoff and industrial wastes. Once there, heavy metals can contaminate soils and pose health risks to humans and other species. Lead is known to affect the brain and nervous system.
Traditionally, water quality engineers have used silica, cellulose, and aluminum oxide to extract heavy metals from water, but these remediation strategies come with high price tags and potentially toxic side effects of their own. They work as extractors due to the presence of acids such as those found in the carboxylic and phenolic groups, which attract metal ions.
(Read more: “Predicting the World’s Next Water Pollution Disaster.”)
Bananas, on the other hand, appear to be a safe solution. Banana peels also outperform the competition, says Gustavo Castro, a researcher at the Biosciences Institute at Botucatu, Brazil, and a coauthor of a new study on this new use of the fruit’s peel.
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.
Previous work has shown that other plant parts—including apple and sugar cane wastes, coconut fibers, and peanut shells—can remove potential toxins from water.
Don’t Try This at Home
Castro doesn’t advise the use of banana peels for home water purification. For starters, the concentration of heavy metals in tap water is usually negligible. Also, while putting banana peels in contact with water will likely remove some metals, the average person isn’t likely to be able to measure success.
Castro said his study findings are most likely to be useful in industrial settings.
The new study appears in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, a journal of the American Chemical Society.
mphatesmpb- Posts : 621
Join date : 2010-10-21
Re: Banana Peels Remove Heavy Metals from Water
funny this went unnoticed... Plantain leaf is used by herbalists to draw toxins, bacteria from wounds as well.
Yanks- Posts : 612
Join date : 2010-03-12
Re: Banana Peels Remove Heavy Metals from Water
Was reading some about this, saw that the peels help with acne. Tons of potassium in there. Was wondering if mashed up banana peel pasted would do anything topically (probably best from organic bananas to start).
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
Whip- Posts : 378
Join date : 2009-09-27
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