U.S. Water News Online
EUGENE, Ore. -- University of Oregon researchers have developed an arsenic "trap" that has the potential to clean up contaminated water or treat poisoning victims.
Arsenic is a chemical element and a naturally occurring poison that contaminates water supplies around the globe.
Darren Johnson, a chemistry professor, and graduate student Jake Vickaryous have created a molecule made of sulphur and carbon that hooks on to arsenic.
Three sulphur-based molecules join with two arsenic atoms to form a kind of pyramid-shaped molecule that's more stable than the sulphur molecule alone. Once locked into the structure Johnson describes as a "molecular claw," the arsenic does not combine with any other molecules.
If the molecule proves stable enough to avoid linking up with any other molecules, it could effectively remove arsenic from human tissue or offer a way to make arsenic-tainted wells safe for drinking water.
"One thing this could potentially do is provide some new environmental remediation and sensing tools," Johnson said.
The federal government currently requires that public water systems have no more than 50 parts per billion of lead and will reduce that to 10 parts per billion in 2006.
About 10 percent of U.S. groundwater has arsenic concentrations above 10 parts per billion, while 20 percent of the wells in the Willamette Valley exceed that level.
Even tiny amounts of arsenic in the human body are potentially damaging. The research might eventually lead to a treatment for arsenic poisoning, but development is a lot farther down the road because the molecule that traps arsenic can only be created in a highly toxic, arsenic-based solvent.
Johnson and Vickaryous will try to develop a water-soluble version of the molecule that's harmless to humans. They also have to make sure their molecule won't break down over time or spit out the arsenic in exchange for another metallic element.
"We need to give the molecule a lot of different metallic molecules and see if it always chooses arsenic," Johnson said. "We'd love to make something non-toxic that we could give to people that would clear arsenic out of their body, or out of the environment."
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