Scientists Use CDs to Clean Waste Water GeoBeats News
go to original October 4, 2013

Scientists have figured out how to use the omnipresent and mostly obsolete data storage devices to clean sewer water. (GeoBeatsNews)

Scientists in Taiwan have come up with an ingenious use for old CDs, and it doesn't involve making wall art, room dividers, or crafts of any kind.

They've figured out how to use the omnipresent and mostly obsolete data storage devices to clean sewer water.

Physicist Din Ping Tsai and his colleagues have been using the discs as a growing space for zinc oxide nanorods.

The nanorods are a thousand times thinner than a strand of human hair. Zinc oxide has the power to serve as a photocatalyst and break apart pollutants when exposed to UV lights.

CDs have proven to be the perfect platform for the substance given their generous surface area and ability to spin quickly.

When waste hits the moving, zinc oxide-rich surface it spreads, allowing for fast degradation of the pollutants.

The device made by Tsai and his team packs a disc, a UV light, and a water recirculator into a one cubic foot box.

They conducted numerous tests and found that their system can make a half liter of waste water 95 percent contaminant-free in about an hour.

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