Objective
Mercury contamination in water due to mining, forest burning and industrial activities is a serious threat to aquatic and human life in South America. Typical examples are the Amazon Basin in Brazil (mercury levels in human hair reach up to 170 pip while at critical levels of 50 pip, first intoxication symptoms appear), the Manu and the Chilli rivers in Peru and several areas in Argentina. Mercury contamination in water is also found in Europe (several regions of Spain). Water treatments are almost non-existent in South America. On the other hand, existing technologies for mercury removal lack efficiency due to poor selectivity of materials used. Therefore the main aim of this proposal is to design selective, recyclable and low cost receptors for
i) 'on site' monitoring of mercury in water,
ii)developing of a viable technology for mercury removal to be tested against phytoremediation agents based on natural resources of the region, and
iii) exploring their potential for therapeutic use. Results expected are
i) a new method for mercury detection,
ii) novel receptors for mercury removal from water, and
iii) background information required for a more efficient treatment for mercury intoxication in humans.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationphytoremediation
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metals
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Topic(s)
Data not availableCall for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
GU2 5XH GUILDFORD
United Kingdom