“I’m really excited about it especially since it’s a new project, and I get to pioneer it my own way,” says student Ben Hewson. “It feels really cool to be able to just explore and figure things out on my own, with help from Dr. [Charley] Liberko. I feel good about it, knowing that this could potentially be something that’s really big and great.”
The team heated sawdust to remove the cellulose, then mixed lignin and metal solution—iron, copper, nickel, and lead. The lignin acted as a sponge, enabling the solution to be poured through a filter. “In order to be able to test whether or not we are removing the metal ions, we have the instrumentation that will do that for us, but most people don’t have the instrumentation that we have here. So, we are developing tests for concentrations of different metal ions that rely on color,” Liberko said.
“All it takes is one drop of this potassium ferricyanide to create a color reaction,” Hewson added. The two were able to remove 90% of the metal ion contaminants.