Group items tagged

flakes are soluble in liquids and easily produced in bulk

The discovery

could be a boon in the cleanup of contaminated sites like the Fukushima nuclear plants

could also cut the cost of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for oil and gas recovery and help reboot American mining of rare earth metals

Graphene oxide's large surface area defines its capacity to adsorb toxins

high retention properties are not surprising

What is astonishing is the very fast kinetics of sorption, which is key

the collaboration took root when

a graduate student

graduate student in Kalmykov's group, met at a conference several years ago.

researchers focused on removing radioactive isotopes of the actinides and lanthanides – the 30 rare earth elements in the periodic table – from liquids, rather than solids or gases

Naturally occurring radionuclides are also unwelcome in fracking fluids that bring them to the surface in drilling operations

When groundwater comes out of a well and it's radioactive above a certain level, they can't put it back into the ground

Companies have to ship contaminated water to repository sites around the country at very large expense

The ability to quickly filter out contaminants on-site would save a great deal of money

even greater potential benefits for the mining industry

Environmental requirements have "essentially shut down U.S. mining of rare earth metals, which are needed for cell phones

China owns the market because they're not subject to the same environmental standards

this technology offers the chance to revive mining here, it could be huge

capturing radionuclides does not make them less radioactive, just easier to handle

Where you have huge pools of radioactive material, like at Fukushima, you add graphene oxide and get back a solid material from what were just ions in a solution

Then you can skim it off and burn it

Graphene oxide burns very rapidly and leaves a cake of radioactive material you can then reuse

The low cost and biodegradable qualities of graphene oxide should make it appropriate for use in permeable reactive barriers, a fairly new technology for in situ groundwater remediation,