Sea foam could contain more ‘forever chemicals’ than water below

26-Sep-2025 - Sea foam is a common sight along the coastline as breaking waves churn up air and algae. Now, a study in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology reports that sea foam from several beaches along North Carolina’s coast contain higher levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) compared to ...

Self-driven and sustainable removal of oil spills in water using bio-inspired textiles

18-Dec-2023 - Researchers at the ITA, the University of Bonn and Heimbach GmbH have developed a new method for removing oil spills from water surfaces in an energy-saving, cost-effective way and without the use of toxic substances. The method is made possible by a technical textile that is integrated into a ...

AI systems for the airborne detection of plastic waste in the oceans

06-Jun-2023 - Aircraft that routinely fly over bodies of water around the world to monitor pollution could in future not only detect oil and chemical spills on the high seas, in coastal waters and on beaches, but also plastic waste floating on the surface of the water. In the PlasticObs+ project, a consortium ...

Plasma against toxic PFAS chemicals

“Ideally, the harmful PFAS substances are eliminated to the point that they can no longer be detected in mass spectrometric measurements”

04-May-2023 - Harmful PFAS chemicals can now be detected in many soils and bodies of water. Removing them using conventional filter techniques is costly and almost infeasible. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB are now successfully implementing a ...

New wood-based technology removes 80% of dye pollutants in wastewater

Method can also be used against other types of pollutants

31-Mar-2023 - Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new method that can easily purify contaminated water using a cellulose-based material. This discovery could have implications for countries with poor water treatment technologies and combat the widespread problem of toxic ...

Making Drinking Water Bacteria-Free

Efficient disinfection of water with silver sulfide quantum dots in a peptide coat

02-Mar-2023 - Water contaminated with bacteria is a large threat to global health. A Chinese research team has described a simple new method of disinfection in the journal Angewandte Chemie. It is based on tiny biocompatible assemblies of atoms, known as quantum dots, made of silver sulfide with caps made of a ...

Enhanced arsenic detection in water, food, soil

Sensor can identify the global content and form of arsenic-containing molecules at very low concentrations

02-Mar-2023 - It is a cruel paradox that on a planet with a surface mostly covered by water, hundreds of millions of people don’t have access to clean drinking water. As for the pollution of potable and natural water sources, one of the main culprits is arsenic, an abundant and toxic element in the earth’s ...

Farewell to ‘forever’ – Destroying PFAS by grinding it up with a new additive

A new way to tackle 'forever chemicals'

25-Jan-2023 - Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are potentially harmful substances known as “forever chemicals” because they are so difficult to destroy. One emerging technique to degrade PFAS involves forcefully grinding them with metal balls in a moving container, but this technique can require ...

Microplastics deposited on the seafloor triple in 20 years

First high-resolution reconstruction of microplastic pollution from sediments obtained in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

28-Dec-2022 - The total amount of microplastics deposited on the bottom of oceans has tripled in the past two decades with a progression that corresponds to the type and volume of consumption of plastic products by society. This is the main conclusion of a study developed by the Institute of Environmental ...

Graffiti spray paints pollute soils with microplastics

Research team detects very high microplastic load from graffiti and paint in soils

02-Nov-2022 - Public awareness of microplastics as a problematic contaminant is growing. So far, increasing contamination by plastic particles has been detected mainly in bodies of water. But soil contamination by microplastics is also increasingly coming into focus. A team of researchers led by biology ...