Contamination of water bodies with multiple toxicants is a severe environmental concern, and safe drinking water is of societal priority. These toxicants can hold different geochemical behavior. Heavy metal and metalloids can remain cationic, like nickel and cadmium, or form metal oxi-anions (chromate and arsenate), else remain metallic (mercury) in the aqueous environment. Therefore, the geochemical behavior of these ions can determine their fate in water bodies and help in designing treatment processes. Researchers used redox-active nanocomposites to treat contaminated waters. These composites suffer from air oxidation before application in water which can limit their activity.
On the other hand, while agriculture fulfills the nutritional demand of the country, processing generates several bi-products, which are generally considered waste. Think about it, what do you generally do with the coconut shell after drinking water, sugarcane bagasse after extracting juice, orange peel, dry fruit shell, and skins after eating them? They all end up in our dustbin and later in municipal solid waste, where they generate obnoxious gas and pose a vast ecological burden.
The highlighted study utilizes almond processing industry waste (almond shell and skin). The amazing fact is even though almond skin comprises 4% of total almond weight; it contains >75% of antioxidants. Waste-to-resource conversion is at the scientific forefront. Based on the hypothesis that these antioxidants can prevent redox-active nanocomposites from oxidation and preserve their reactivity, we used almond shell waste to generate biochar as a surface to grow nanoparticles and almond skin extracted antioxidants to cover them. Results have shown the generation of a new iron-carbonyl shell over Fe0 nanoparticles supporting their successful capping. Once released in aqueous solutions, this shell disappears, which allows easy electron transfer on the surface. Unforeseen metal sorption capacities (695 mg/g) and continuous water filtration (1,00,000 liters/ kg of the composite) were observed. This new strategy has opened a new area in the field of redox-sensitive materials for environmental applications.

Contamination of water bodies with multiple toxicants is a severe environmental concern, and safe drinking water is of societal priority. These toxicants can hold different geochemical behavior. Heavy metal and metalloids can remain cationic, like nickel and cadmium, or form metal oxi-anions (chromate and arsenate), else remain metallic (mercury) in the aqueous environment. Therefore, the geochemical behavior of these ions can determine their fate in water bodies and help in designing treatment processes. Researchers used redox-active nanocomposites to treat contaminated waters. These composites suffer from air oxidation before application in water which can limit their activity.
On the other hand, while agriculture fulfills the nutritional demand of the country, processing generates several bi-products, which are generally considered waste. Think about it, what do you generally do with the coconut shell after drinking water, sugarcane bagasse after extracting juice, orange peel, dry fruit shell, and skins after eating them? They all end up in our dustbin and later in municipal solid waste, where they generate obnoxious gas and pose a vast ecological burden.
The highlighted study utilizes almond processing industry waste (almond shell and skin). The amazing fact is even though almond skin comprises 4% of total almond weight; it contains >75% of antioxidants. Waste-to-resource conversion is at the scientific forefront. Based on the hypothesis that these antioxidants can prevent redox-active nanocomposites from oxidation and preserve their reactivity, we used almond shell waste to generate biochar as a surface to grow nanoparticles and almond skin extracted antioxidants to cover them. Results have shown the generation of a new iron-carbonyl shell over Fe^0^ nanoparticles supporting their successful capping. Once released in aqueous solutions, this shell disappears, which allows easy electron transfer on the surface. Unforeseen metal sorption capacities (695 mg/g) and continuous water filtration (1,00,000 liters/ kg of the composite) were observed. This new strategy has opened a new area in the field of redox-sensitive materials for environmental applications.

Fruit waste is a new warrior of water pollution: Antioxidant capping to preserve redox-active nanocomposites for continuous water filtration

@LatinXChem is a virtual forum through which the community of Latin American chemists, located anywhere in the world, can share and discuss their research results and advances. More than 1200 posters from 43 countries were received in its first version, with 20 million impacts on Twitter. The second event organized by @LatinXChem will be the #LXChem2021 Conference (September 20, 2021), where posters divided into eleven categories can be discussed via Twitter.

LatinXChem 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.