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The raw material for the adsorbent is the biomass of hogweed Sosnowski and natural and industrial lignin, which is a polymer compound contained in plant cells (in the first case) and a by-product of the chemical processing of wood (in the second case). The results of the study are published at the international journal Carbon Resources Conversion.
The aim of the study was obtaining of a new substance for water purification from radionuclides – the radioactive elements forming during a nuclear reaction – able to enter the environment not only during nuclear waste disposal but also due to such natural causes as gamma radiation from space or radioactive radiation of the earth’s crust elements. One of the longest-lived radionuclides is uranium, which when accumulated in soil pollutes the ground and surface waters, and then, having dissolved in them, spreads through lakes and rivers.
The authors of the study first crushed hogweed to a powder state, and then synthesised it with natural and technical lignin at high temperatures, with addition of an oxidising agent. At the last stage, the resulting material was cooled by treatment with nitrogen compounds, which also gave it a porous structure.
The experiments carried out during the study demonstrated that the new adsorbent retains uranium well: 70% of the mass of this radionuclide could not be washed off with water and special solvents. In addition, the material was able to adsorb T-2 mycotoxin, a waste product of mold fungi, which can accumulate in grain products, as well as in vegetables, fruits and nuts and cause serious diseases.
“The results of our research confirm that nanocarbon materials obtained from hogweed stalks can be used as the preparations that adsorb harmful elements, which will help preserve human health under the conditions of chronic radiation exposure, including at orbital stations and in radioactively contaminated territories. We plan to continue the research of the lignin obtained from the plant biomass to create drugs improving the quality of human life,” the Russian Science Foundation quotes Lyudmila Kocheva, the head of the study, Doctor of Chemistry, the leading researcher at the Komi Scientific Centre of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
