Detoxify with banana peel

One day banana peels will become raw materials to produce detoxification equipment in the water, not a useless waste.

Many previous studies have demonstrated that coconut fiber, peanut shells and some plant-derived waste can remove heavy and toxic metals - such as lead and copper - in the water. Mines, factories and farms can create these kinds of garbage. They can have adverse effects on human health and the environment. Existing measures to filter heavy metal contaminated water require huge costs. In addition, some of the materials used in the filtration process can be toxic to humans.

According to National Geographic, Gustavo Castro, an environmental chemist at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, said that banana peels can also push heavy metals out of the water. Currently, people use banana peels to do a lot of things, like polishing silver and leather objects.

He and his colleagues found that banana peels contain many nitrogen atoms, sulfur and organic compounds such as carboxylic acid groups. Carboxylic acid groups have very strong negative potentials so they can bind to metals (positively charged) in water.

The research team found that chopped banana plants are more effective at reducing copper and lead molecules than many other water-purifying materials. When chopped banana peels are thrown into the river, they quickly remove these two metals.

'The ability to push the metal of banana peels is much larger than many of the artificial materials that humans invented over the past decade ,' Castro said.

Castro emphasized that water filters containing chopped banana peels can be used up to 11 times without losing the binding properties to metal molecules. Of course, synthetic water filtration materials can be used more often, but they need a chemical process to work and the cost is higher. In contrast, banana peels are sold at very low prices and they do not need chemical processes to push metal.

However, Castro said, people should not dehydrate banana peels at home because new scientists only know it can "catch" copper and lead.

" If other poisons exist in the water, then banana peels cannot be removed ," Castro said.