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back to article Reusable autonomous swimming microbots soak up 95% of spilt lead

Thousands of miniature microbots could be used to clean up toxic heavy metals in contaminated water in tests purging some 95 percent of lead in an hour. The findings promise to reduce the impact of industrial spill clean up efforts by avoiding the introduction of additional contaminants, and salvaging lead for recycling. It …

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  1. frank ly

    Real world details

    If they are self propelled then good luck in magnetically retrieving them from the sea or a lake. If you can get access to them for retrieval then why not just stir the contaminated water or pump it over a sheet of GOx?

    4 0 Reply
  2. cmannett85

    Aren't fish going to eat them? When they're full of lead too.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      .. and with that much lead they'll sink ..

      0 0 Reply
  3. Roger Greenwood
    Pint

    I can just imagine them being launched:-

    "Eat lead, suckers"

    10 0 Reply
  4. Herby

    Memo to self...

    Flint Michigan.

    3 0 Reply
    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Memo to self...

      Michigan has already been flinted sufficiently, thanks.

      0 0 Reply
  5. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Nice! Could it be modified to work with other metals as well? Uranium springs to mind.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Swarthy
      Reply Icon

      Uranium?

      I don't know of too many Uranium-contaminated water sources, but I would think that Mercury would be an outstanding target.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Trainee grumpy old ****
        Reply Icon

        Re: Uranium?

        I don't know of too many Uranium-contaminated water sources, but I would think that Mercury would be an outstanding target.

        Or crude oil. Think clean up after an oil spill or tanker / drilling-rig disaster.

        0 0 Reply
      2. Alan Brown Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Uranium?

        "I don't know of too many Uranium-contaminated water sources,"

        There are a few near mines.

        More importantly, there's a shitload of uranium-contaminated sites in the middle east, thanks to the USA freely hosing targets down with DU rounds in various wars (the uranium catches fire, spreading uranium oxide everywhere, not just inside the tank that were the usual targets (the fire was what killed the crew) On top of that, with kids being kids a bombed out tank is a great playground)

        Depleted uranium is effectively non-radioactive, but it's an extremely toxic environmental heavy metal so having it in the environment is a bad thing if you want civilians to lead ordinary lives.

        2 0 Reply
      3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Uranium?

        I don't know of too many Uranium-contaminated water sources, but I would think that Mercury would be an outstanding target.

        Ridiculous. There's no liquid water on Mercury.

        0 0 Reply
  6. Mage Silver badge
    Alert

    I'm confused.

    If they are self propelled, how are they powered? What sort of propulsion?

    Are these really bots (programmed, CPU, engine & PSU) or a meta-material?

    4 2 Reply
    1. Paul Kinsler
      Reply Icon

      Re: I'm confused.

      quote: "the inner platinum layer decomposes hydrogen peroxide for self-propulsion"

      So, with 2 H2O2 -> 2H2O + O2, presumably the bubbles of oxygen are produced in a way/position so as to push the thing one way (or at least move it around a bit more than otherwise).

      3 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Still confused!

        or just plain worried - where does this H2O2 come from? It's not normally abundant in the wild, owing to its tendency to disassociate when faced with most any catalyst or just plain sunlight. Is the lead pollution to be fixed by stirring in vast quantities of a potent oxidiser? That would be shades of the "old lady who swallowed a fly"

        0 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    News just in...

    Researchers have spent all their grant money and now have to publish some theoretical nonsense with the delusion of potential in order to get more money to keep doing this sort of robot nonsense.

    2 17 Reply
  8. Positive ground

    Clean up

    To the person who mentioned cleaning up of oil spills, there are already various microbes being investigated by the Woods Hole Institute to do this. Crude is a natural mineral of course, and nature has a way of evolving something to take advantage of any local abundance. As an example, have a look at the sea water just off Baku (disgusting) and then start to wonder why the rest of the Caspian basin hasn't filled up with crude over years - the pollution remains very local to its source. Ok, there are no currents or tides to speak of, but the pollution spread does remain baffingly small in comparison to the output.

    In relation to this article, who can tell me if the future of these microbots possibly include marine mining for precious metals, not just used for cleaning up local pools of pollution? Dump a 'bag of bots' (equivalent to the SI unit of excess, i.e. a firkin lot of the buggers) into a well-known current in the middle of the Atlantic and wait for ingots of gold to be carried ashore at your bot-base, volcano lair optional.

    0 0 Reply
    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Clean up

      "In relation to this article, who can tell me if the future of these microbots possibly include marine mining for precious metals, not just used for cleaning up local pools of pollution? Dump a 'bag of bots' (equivalent to the SI unit of excess, i.e. a firkin lot of the buggers) into a well-known current in the middle of the Atlantic and wait for ingots of gold to be carried ashore at your bot-base, volcano lair optional."

      Glad I'm not the only one who thought this :-)

      0 0 Reply

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