Guided by a magnetic field, tiny tubes of graphene could store dissolved heavy metals in a water contaminated. Among the many possibilities of nanotechnology, some make it possible to produce miracles that in a few decades will be fully possible.
A group of international researchers affirms that nanorobots coated with graphene could decontaminate waters containing heavy metals. These research works show that it is possible to remove 95% of the lead contained in water in one hour.
El performance It is interesting since it must be remembered that contamination by metals such as mercury, cadmium and chromium, and not only lead, is a real problem within the contamination Environmental. This can come from industrial activities as important as mining, battery manufacturing or electronics.
To respond to this challenge, researchers have fabricated cylindrical microobjects composed of layers with holes. The innermost layer is made up of a hollow platinum tube that reacts with the water it contains. hydrogen peroxide. These oxygen microbubbles form in the tube, and come out through an opening.
The platinum tube is covered by a layer of nickel ferromagnetic, so that the tubes behave like micro-magnets in motion. In this way, it is possible to direct the trajectories with the help of varying magnetic fields. The outer layer that surrounds the nickel It is made of graphene oxide and it is the one that effectively captures lead atoms.
The use of fields magnetic It also allows these microobjects to be displaced in the contaminated water and to be extracted once the collection of metals is completed. Treated with an acid solution, they release the contaminants and they are again ready to be used.
The results obtained suggest that the procedure can also be used to extract other metals from the waters contaminated, and at a much lower cost than the other techniques used so far.