Decontaminating water

Environmental engineers at the Tampere University of Technology, Finland, have successfully demonstrated an efficient method to clean up chlorophenol-contaminated groundwater without first having to heat it up (Environmental Science & Technology, Vol 28, No 13).

Widely used as wood-preservatives, chlorophenols are known to pollute surface as well as groundwater. Conventional methods to remove chlorophenols are reliable only at room temperature (20^oC to 30^oC) which is well above the groundwater temperature. But the method developed by Kimmo Jarvinen and colleagues that uses sand, vulcanite mineral, silica-based material called Celite R-633 and pumice, could eliminate over 99.9 per cent of chlorophenol from groundwater at temperatures between 5^oC and 7^oC.