How this southern food staple can remove plastic particles from water
Okra can be fried or stewed, pickled or grilled. It can be added to gumbo or paired with any southern dish.
But did you know that it can also be used to remove microplastics or tiny plastic particles from water?
Tarleton State University researchers recently found that extracts from okra, along with aloe, cactus and psyllium can be better alternatives to current water treatment processes.
People unintentionally consume tens of thousands of plastic particles every year, studies suggest. And those small particles have been linked to a variety of health problems, including an increased risk of organ damage, cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
“We think that microplastics by themselves may not be much of a health hazard, but anything they get into or any type of toxic substance that gets attached to them could go inside our bodies and cause problems,” said Rajani Srinivasan, the chemistry professor who led the study.
In the typical water treatment process, microplastics are removed from water in two steps. Those that float are skimmed off, only removing a fraction of the total microplastics that are present. The rest has to be removed by adding sticky chemicals that attract the microplastics and form large clumps, which then sink to the bottom of the water and can be removed.
Srinivasan says that some of those substances used to remove contaminants can be harmful, so she and her team investigated non-toxic alternatives.
“It doesn’t help if we try to clean up water but add potentially toxic substances to remove the pollutants,” she said in a release.
Plant-based removal proved to work better or as well as the traditional chemicals. And the plants can be incorporated into existing water treatment processes, researchers said.
“The whole treatment method with the non-toxic materials uses the same infrastructure,” Srinivasan said. “We don’t have to build something new to incorporate these materials for water treatment purposes.”
Researchers found that okra paired with fenugreek could best remove microplastics from ocean water, whereas an okra and tamarind combination worked best for freshwater.
Ultimately, the researchers want to commercialize the method and remove microplastics from water on an industrial scale. Srinivasan and her team are experimenting with ratios and combinations to effectively remove different microplastic types from water sources. They also plan to study the removal process outside the lab.
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 1:59 PM.
