Chinese Researchers Turn an Invasive Plant Into a Filter for Fluoride-Contaminated Water
A team at Northeast Normal University made a magnesium-coated carbon material from staghorn sumac, an invasive plant in China, that captured fluoride from water at high capacity across a wide pH range in lab tests.
Researchers at Northeast Normal University in China have turned residues of staghorn sumac, a plant they describe as invasive, into a material that removes fluoride from water at high capacity, according to a release on EurekAlert!. The study appears in the journal Biochar X.
Too much fluoride harms health
Fluoride occurs naturally in groundwater, and industries from semiconductor making and glass production to lithium refining also release it in wastewater. Excessive exposure can cause serious health problems, so cheap and effective ways to remove it matter for both drinking water and industrial cleanup.
Plant waste and nano-magnesium oxide work together
The team, led by Jiunian Guan, first turned the sumac biomass into hydrochar, then heated it with magnesium to create a porous carbon studded with nano-sized magnesium oxide particles. The material captured up to 469.64 milligrams of fluoride per gram, more than the magnesium oxide-based materials it was compared with.
It kept working across a pH range of 5 to 11, and common ions such as nitrate and sulfate barely interfered, though high bicarbonate levels reduced how much fluoride it took up. The combined material captured much more fluoride than either the carbon or the magnesium oxide on its own.
“Our goal was to address two environmental challenges at the same time: fluoride contamination in water and the growing accumulation of invasive plant biomass.” — Jiunian Guan, corresponding author, Northeast Normal University
The results come from laboratory tests. The authors say further work is needed to test the material in real wastewater and at engineering scale. The full paper is available in Biochar X.
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