Green Chemistry: magic small molecules remove 99% bisphenol A from water in half an hour

According to the definition of who, endocrine disruptors are one or more exogenous substances In modern life, endocrine disruptors are mainly transmitted through water, which have the function of changing the endocrine system, and thus cause adverse health effects on organisms and / or offspring The lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a sub Journal of the lance, reports that the health problems caused by long-term exposure to low concentration endocrine disruptors cost Americans 340 billion US dollars annually, which is equivalent to 2.3% of the GDP of the United States Another study on andrology shows that the situation in Europe is also not optimistic Europeans spend $217 billion a year on this, accounting for 1.3% of Europe's GDP The source of pollution (source: Scientific American) led by Leonardo trasande, a epidemiologist at New York University School of medicine, the research team collected blood samples and urine samples to analyze the endocrine disruptors The national health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) collects epidemiological and risk factor data on major diseases every year The researchers used computer models to process the data and estimate the cost of care and loss of income for different diseases Bisphenol A (BPA) causes 33000 cases every year, and the annual cost is up to 2.4 billion US dollars Long term exposure to bisphenol A will accelerate nervous system disorders, lead to obesity or attention deficit (ADHD), and reduce intelligence Bisphenol A (source: C & EN) is the main chemical industry trade association in the United States The American Chemistry Council (ACC) opposes these "random" Studies on the relationship between chemicals and human health ACC believes that for a long time, the research data and conclusions of environmental chemists have been flawed, and the "title party" paper is not conducive to public safety Terrence J Collins, a professor of chemistry at the Institute of green science at Carnegie Mellon University, has been fighting with ACC for many years In addition to calling on the government to step in more carefully during the production stage and focus on eliminating the threat of harmful chemicals remaining in the environment to human health Recently, a team of chemists, toxicologists and engineers led by Terrence J Collins has found a simple and cheap way to remove BPA in water after 15 years of research Researchers use TAML (TETRA amido macrocyclic ligand) hydrogen peroxide and other oxidants to work together to decompose all kinds of difficult pollutants TAML / H2O2 can imitate the enzyme in human body to complete the task of purification, induce the oxidation of bisphenol A and its derivatives to oligomer, form precipitation, and make bisphenol a easy to be filtered out In nature, peroxidase can accelerate the reaction related to hydrogen peroxide, a common civil compound, which can be used to bleach hair and remove carpet dyes In the forest, the fungi on the rotten trees use peroxidase to gather and command hydrogen peroxide to decompose the lignin polymer in the wood, and decompose these macromolecules into smaller molecules, so that the fungi can use them Cytochrome P450 is another kind of enzyme family, which can accelerate the reaction related to oxygen (also known as peroxidation) For example, cytochrome P450 in our liver uses oxygen to efficiently remove many toxic molecules we inhale or ingest Tmal also means assembling molecules that are strong enough to withstand some of the destructive reactions they catalyze Any chemical reaction related to oxygen has a destructive effect, because the element oxygen or molecular oxygen released in the oxidation process is highly reactive Further borrowing from the design of nature, the Terrence J Collins team designed a catalyst In the catalyst, four nitrogen atoms are placed on four corners of the square, and one iron atom is anchored in the middle of the square The four nitrogen atoms are linked to much larger iron atoms by a covalent bond, which means they share some pairs of electrons In this structure, the smaller atoms around the central metal atom and the attached groups are called ligands Then the researchers connected these ligands to form a large outer ring called a large ring These ligands and the connection system became extremely tough and strong enough to withstand the intense response triggered by these TAML This technology can be applied and popularized easily Hydrogen peroxide is commonly used in chemical industry, and one kilogram of TAML catalyst can be used to treat tens of thousands of tons of water Terrence J Collins believes that anyone can use this method to clean the environment everywhere, and their small molecules solve a problem worth billions of dollars Paper link: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/article landing/2017/gc/c7gc01415e ා divabstract