Science, Space and Technology News 2024
Engineered yeast-containing hydrogel capsules could be used to remove lead from contaminated water rapidly and inexpensively. The work, from MIT and Georgia Tech researchers, could be especially useful in low-income areas with high lead contamination. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers
The researchers envision that this process could be used to filter drinking water coming out of a faucet in homes, or scaled up to treat large quantities of water at treatment plants. In a serendipitous coincidence, Stathatou and Athanasiou happened to present their research at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston in 2021, where Gokhale, a student in Doyle’s lab, was presenting his own research on using hydrogels to capture micropollutants in water. The two sets of researchers decided to join forces and explore whether the yeast-based strategy could be easier to scale up if the yeast were encapsulated in hydrogels developed by Gokhale and Doyle.
Each capsule is about half a millimeter in diameter. Because the hydrogels are very thin and porous, water can easily pass through and encounter the yeast inside, while the yeast remain trapped. After assessing the mechanical robustness of the yeast-laden capsules, the researchers constructed a proof-of-concept packed-bed biofilter, capable of treating trace lead-contaminated water and meeting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking water guidelines while operating continuously for 12 days.
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