Researchers have identified a potentially low-cost way to clean water contaminated with rare earth metals — using discarded seashells instead of added chemicals.
A team from the Department of Geology at Trinity College Dublin and iCRAG (Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences) found that oyster shells can remove rare earth elements from polluted water by transforming them into new solid minerals. The process could potentially address two problems at once: water contamination and the growing volume of shell waste generated by the aquaculture industry. The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of the Total Environment.
