8 ms·
You can't really get rid of elements in biological systems. So you can only transform the chemicals into a less harmful version or accumulate and store them som
by fabian2k 4y ago
You can't really get rid of elements in biological systems. So you can only transform the chemicals into a less harmful version or accumulate and store them somewhere where they can't do anything.
Some organo-mercury compounds are dramatically more toxic than elemental mercury, so this is probably quite a bit better than just accumulating them and requiring another method to get rid of the accumulated waste.
In soil it doesn't seem all that useful to accumulate toxic elements, in water I could imagine it being much easier to accumulate them into a non-soluble form that is not bio-available and can be removed much more easily.
- bell-cot 4y agoParagraphs 1 & 2: All too true. Paragraph 3: It sounds unclear whether the elemental mercury accumulates in the fungus, or in the soil, or mostly evaporates. If the fungus is dispersed through the soil, the practical difference between those is limited. The ability of the fungus to prevent uptake of mercury from contaminated soil (by some crops) might be extremely helpful to poor farmers. BUT - in the context of a water treatment facility, where you might filter contaminated water through a tightly-controlled bit of fungus-filled soil, then actual removal of the mercury seems more plausible. (Admitting that your end-product would probably be closer to "100,000X contaminated soil" than to "nice bottles of shiny stuff".)