Doctoral student Gabriel Lobo's cost effective solution to make lead pipes safer in distribution systems was highlighted at the recent 2019 American Chemical Society conference in Orlando, FL.
"More than 18 million people in the US are currently at risk of developing health problems from lead leaching from pipes in their water distribution systems," says Gabriel Lobo.
Lobo became involved in this issue when his adviser, Professor Ashok Gadgil, began to focus on finding a solution for the lead problems in Flint, MI.
Gadgil and his team came up with an electrochemical approach to the problem. They applied a small external voltage to a sample of pipe to speed up corrosion. As usual, the freed lead ions then reacted with phosphates in the water to form scale. The process took just a few hours, compared with a couple of years for the usual scaling method.
Gabriel hopes this process could quickly restore the protective coating in the pipes in Flint, where scale has still not recoated the pipes.
- See interview with Lobo below.
- See official press release (Science Daily)
- To seal off dangerous lead pipes, just add electricity (Science Magazine, 4.3.19)
- Zapping Lead Pipes with Electricity Could Make Them Safer for Drinking Water (Scientific American, 4.4.19)