On Wednesday, 17 March, Mining Museum, St. Petersburg, informed it had concluded experiments on removing toxic impurities from wastewater. The experiments were carried out using mineral samples from the museum's vaults, reports the press office of the city's largest natural-scientific exposition.
The peculiarity of the solution lies in the filtering material capable of trapping even the most toxic components. Iron-manganese nodules were used as a barrier for wastewater treatment.
Samples of mineral aggregates, high in iron and manganese, have long been known for their ability to remove heavy metals from any solution. Still, they have never been used before to clean water from phenols and cyanides, which are increasingly found in process effluents. Filters made of such material absorb hazardous substances and neutralise them as well.
"The research we did is of great relevance, as nowadays the activities of any industrial enterprise inevitably lead to polluting the environment through water effluents. That said, one of the main tasks to be solved when planning treatment measures is to choose an effective and environmentally friendly filtering material capable of absorbing most harmful impurities," says Maria Sulimova, a research engineer at Mining Museum.
