Tiny Robots Could Remove Chemical Pollution From Our Waterways
These magnet-controlled nanorobots might change the way we clean our water.
The tiny robots are sensitive to water temperature.
Tiny robots could provide a new way to gather chemical pollutants from water, according to new research published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.
Water sources across the world have become polluted with pesticides and heavy metal contaminants, due to industrial activities like mining. Pollutants in water can be harmful for humans, as well as the environment. The tiny robots, or nanorobots, are about 200 nanometers wide and could "guide the design of sustainable technologies for the removal of chemical pollutants from water," according to the announcement. (By comparison, a strand of human hair is about 2.5 nanometers in diameter.)
The sustainability aspect is worth highlighting, as these tiny robots, made of temperature-sensitive plastic, are designed to be reusable. Here's how they work.
In cool water, the tiny robots disperse. The nanorobots' temperature-sensitive plastic acts as the robots' "hands," with which the robots attach themselves to microscopic pollutants like arsenic. Once the water temperature is raised, the robots come together, with the pollutants they've gathered in tow, and both robots and pollutants are easily extracted using magnets. Then, once the tiny robots cool and separate, the pollutants can be safely unloaded, and the nanorobots can be reused.
To test the robots, the researchers used water with low concentrations of arsenic, a chemical that can be toxic to humans. After 100 minutes, the little machines were able to capture just over 65% of the arsenic from the water. The nanorobots are still in the research phase, but if they can be deployed widely and effectively, they could be an important (and reusable) tool for cleaning up polluted groundwater.