Put some olive oil in a frying pan, add rust, and simmer. It may not sound very appetising, but this recipe for nano-size rust particles could give developing nations a cheap way to remove arsenic from drinking water.
Arsenic is linked to bladder cancer, and is a big problem in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Chemists know that it binds particularly well to iron oxides, or rust, and so can be removed by them. Vicki Colvin and her colleagues at Rice University in Houston, Texas, realised that reducing the size of the iron oxide particles would boost their surface area and…
