Sunscreen, sodavoila
A cheap way to clean up radioactive waste
a common ingredient of sunscreens, when mixed with another ingredient of soaps, can clean up wastewater containing radioactive material. Upon heating, titanium dioxide and caustic soda form a ceramic. This, a group of Australian and Chinese researchers found, could absorb radioactive material. With the demand for nuclear material for electricity increasing across the world, this ceramic could find wider use: removing radioactive ions from wastewater of nuclear reactors and mines.
This ceramic has layers of nanofibres, with sodium ions in them. When added to wastewater from nuclear plants and uranium mines, the radioactive material got attracted into the spaces between the layers, where it displaced sodium. After absorbing the toxin to its capacity, the nanofibers collapsed