CleanBeta

Clean Water Gets A Mercury Killer

A breakthrough technology announced today quickly and cheaply removes metal contaminants like mercury from water.

The technology, developed by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, claims to work without creating hazardous waste or by-product.

Known as SAMMS for Self-Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports, the technology has already secured patent and trademark protection. The government has licensed the technology to Steward Environmental Solutions, a manufacturer of advanced powders and nanomaterials. The company originally wanted to market SAMMS for treating gaseous emissions like those that emitted by coal power plants and municipal incinerators. Now, Steward, which says it will produce SAMMS on an industrial scale, claims that it will be able to sell SAMMS for other applications as well.

Here’s how the DOE press release describes SAMMS:

“SAMMS^TM . . . . is simple, inexpensive and easy to use; it is highly adaptable for use in reducing and removing metal contaminants from aqueous and non-aqueous materials; and it has numerous applications, including water treatment, waste stabilization, and metal processing and finishing. It is also significantly faster, more effective, and far less expensive than other mercury removal methods used in the past.”