If ya hang around some of the less savory places I do on occasion, you're bound to bump into this sweet-smelling bad actor named, Trichloroethylene, or TCE. You might recall that this bad actor had a lead in the book and movie "A Civil Action", about contaminated wells in Woburn, MA. Well, if you do bump into this character in a dark alley, grab your kidneys and liver and get outa town. Or maybe not...
Trichloroethylene, a solvent typically used for degreasing, is not something you want to be drinking:
TCE lingers like a bad houseguest, especially if handled carelessly. It accumulates in soil and can persist for years in groundwater. In a report last year, the National Research Council found that TCE was a potential cause of kidney cancer; it's also associated with liver problems, autoimmune disease and impaired neurological function.
Enter King Midas--usually known as Michael Wong--with his miracle gold nanoparticles dusted with palladium. According to this fascinating piece in Smithsonian Magazine by William Booth of the Washington Post, Mr. Wong has discovered somewhat of a cure that even he doesn't fully understand.
And just what is it? "We don't know!" says Wong. "We don't understand the chemistry. But we don't understand it in a good way," meaning he believes that his team will figure it out soon. "Our catalyst is doing something really goofy."
No expensive endless inefficient pump and treat? That's just positively goofy.
Goofy it may be, but Wong's nanodetergent breaks TCE down into relatively harmless ethane and chloride salts. He and his team are now working with engineers to build a real-sized reactor to field-test the nanoparticles at a polluted site. They hope to be scrubbing TCE in about a year, and then they'll see whether they have the cost-efficient cleaner they seek.
Just to get an idea of the pervasive nature of this chemical, consider these facts:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified 1,428 hazardous waste sites as the most serious in the nation, and these sites make up the National Priorities List (NPL, or Superfund) targeted for long-term federal clean-up. Trichloroethylene has been found in at least 861, or 60%, of the NPL sites, and there are tens of thousands of other cleanup sites across the country. The full extent of TCE contamination nationwide is unclear. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) reports that trichloroethylene is the most frequently reported organic contaminant in groundwater, and estimates that between 9 and 34 percent of drinking water supply sources have some trichloroethylene contamination.
And cleaning it up is no small task either involving years of inefficient pumping and treating. The MMR, or Mass Miliary Reservation has this tale to tell:
or Mass Military Reservation army base on Cape Cod has TCE as the worst of a few contaminants, potentially affecting drinking water for 200,000. Just to give you an idea of how expensive the usual treatment can be:
Over $400 million has been spent to date on investigation and cleanup of Installation Restoration Program sites. The estimated total cost to complete the cleanup project is $850 million. These costs include operation of all groundwater cleanup systems for 10 to 30 years. There are currently 12 groundwater cleanup systems operating on eight plumes, extracting and cleaning over 12 million gallons a day of contaminated water from both on and off the MMR. Five more groundwater cleanup systems are to be built during the next four years. Some systems are expected to operate for less than ten years, but several will need to be operated for 25-30 years in order to restore the groundwater aquifer.
There's also quite a few TCE contaminated sites in California that have found their way to major drinking water sources and probably all of our dinner tables.
Well, I'm not in any position to evaluate some 'goofy' nanodiscovery by a post-doctorate chemist but if he's got himself a gold-plated magic bullet to clean up the mess we've made of our diminishing fresh water supply here on earth, let it rain down!