Lyon, S. (2020, April 6). “Tiny Polymer Springs Give a Boost to Environmental Cleanup.” Princeton University, The Trustees of Princeton University, Retrieved from www.princeton.edu/news/2020/04/06/tiny-polymer-springs-give-boost-environmental-cleanup.
A team of researchers at Princeton have discovered a new way to purify and get contaminants out of water. Fluids that have microscopic pores are used like nets to remove microscopic contaminants from water. These contaminants include crude oil and mercury, things that can be dangerous for humans and animals to drink. This is a more effective way to clean water than scientists have been doing in the past.
I feel that advances in technology that aid in environmental cleanup are very helpful and essential to environmental and human health. As there are more and more advances in this field, humans and the environment alike will be healthier. However, it is sad to me that we have to go through all this to purify the water with newer and newer technologies because of all the pollution and oil spills in the ocean. If people did not pollute and spill oil in water, we would not have to go through all this purifying.
I agree it is sad that we are forced to go to these lengths to purify the water after we’ve done so much to dirty it. However, it Is uplifting to see that there are solutions, especially to the issue of removing microscopic contaminants. I had presumed they were almost impossible to remove given the attention to their danger and to know that this might be possible is still a good thing. Is it possible to produce this technology and utilize it at a scale that means we can remove most of the microscopic pollutants in the water?