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Soybean Scraps: Nature's Pollution Solution? 
By Erin Peabody
June 21, 2006 
The answer to tomorrow’s water pollution problems could come from soybeans,
according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Not from the 
tender
legumes themselves, but from the overly abundant hulls that typically end up 
as a
livestock feed.
ARS chemists Wayne Marshall and Lynda Wartelle have discovered that these
undervalued hulls—as well as leftover stalks and stems from already-plucked 
corn
and sugarcane plants—make the ideal foundation for a potent filtering agent 
that
can adsorb harmful levels of lead, chromium, copper and cadmium from 
contaminated
waters. 
Marshall and Wartelle—who work at the ARS Southern Regional Research Center
(SRRC) in New Orleans, La.—have found that it takes just two simple steps to
convert these cheap and abundant crop residues into a powerful magnet capable 
of
snagging both positively- and negatively-charged particles of heavy metals in
water.
Full story at: 
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2006/060621.htm?pf=1

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