Thursday, 24th March 2005 (3176 views)

Gold could be used to help clean up a toxic pollutant in groundwater.

According to US scientists the precious metal could be used to clean the pollutant in a faster and cheaper way than is currently possible.

Carcinogen trichloroethene (TCE) is a colourless organic liquid that smells like chloroform and it is found in the manufacture of metal engineering parts, said to cause liver damage and cancer in humans.

Before regulations were implemented, the US used to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the liquid on land or in water and so a lot of it now remains in groundwater.

According to the researchers by using gold and palladium nanoparticles the pollutant can be broken down more quickly.

Research has been conducted by engineers at Rice University and the George Institute of Technology.

 

« Back to Gold News stories

 

The news feeds on this site are independently provided by Adfero Limited © and do not represent the views or opinions of the World Gold Council.