New materials can capture a large amount of toxic metal ions in water

According to Xinhua News Agency (reporter Qian Zheng), a recent report in the British journal Nature Communications details the development of a novel polymer material by an international research team involving Kyoto University in Japan. This material can selectively capture large amounts of toxic heavy metal ions in water, thereby purifying the aquatic environment.

Kyoto University's press release explains that currently used water purification materials primarily rely on adsorption of ions through small pores within the material, or through ion exchange between ions in the material and ions in the water. However, these materials often struggle to balance high removal efficiency with the selective removal of target ions.

Certain plants and animals cleverly utilize proteins that selectively bind with specific heavy metal ions to protect themselves from heavy metal poisoning. For example, plants use intracellular phytochelatins to selectively capture heavy metal ions such as cadmium absorbed from groundwater through their roots, and then sequester them in vacuoles. Inspired by this, researchers designed a synthetic polymer. This polymer possesses the same functional groups that phytochelatins use to bind with heavy metal ions. The research team confirmed that its binding capacity with cadmium ions surpasses that of phytochelatins.

The research team also achieved ultra-high integration of this polymer material, significantly improving the efficiency of ion capture. In purification experiments conducted on industrial wastewater, 3 milliliters of this ultra-high integration material could remove cadmium ions from 300 milliliters of wastewater to meet drinking water standards within one hour.