IISER Pune’s new material removes pollutants from water (GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Why in news?
- Access to clean and drinkable water has now not only become a local problem but global as well. Water contamination is one of the world’s leading causes of death and the problem is only getting worse.
- To tackle this, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune came up with a custom-designed unique molecular sponge-like material, which can swiftly clean polluted water by soaking up sinister contaminants.
Carcinogenic pollutants:
- Systematic studies have identified various organic (organic dyes, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.) as well as inorganic toxic pollutants such as iodides, oxo-pollutants like perrhenate that are carcinogenic in fresh water sources and can pose direct threat to humanity and living organisms.
- In general, commonly utilised sorbent materials often trap these pollutants through ion-exchange strategy to purify water but suffer from poor kinetics and specificity.
- To mitigate this issue, they prepared a newly engineered material called viologen-unit grafted organic-framework (iVOFm).
iVOFm:
- The material employs amalgamation of electrostatics driven ion-exchange combined with nanometer-sized macropores and specific binding sites for the targeted pollutants.
- The size and number of tunable macropores along with the strong electrostatic interaction of iVOFm can quickly remove various toxic pollutants from water.
- To develop this unique material, our team employed a make-and-break strategy to grow a charged porous organic polymer (POP) as a sponge-like infinite framework on silica nanoparticles that is used as a template.
- Following this, the silica nanoparticles were strategically removed to create ordered hierarchical interconnected macro/microporosity throughout the material.
Characteristics:
- This material features inherent cationic nature and macroporosity to allow fast diffusion of pollutants. When tested for a wide array of water pollutants, it showed ultrafast capture of all the pollutants, both organic and inorganic with over 93% removal in just 30 seconds.
- Among all the tested pollutants, the new material showed ultrafast removal of sulfadimethoxine antibiotic from water almost completely.
- Even in the presence of other co-existing anions such as nitrates, chloride, and bromide, the removal of sulfadimethoxine antibiotic was extremely high within a minute. The engineered material could remove sulfadimethoxine antibiotic with high efficiency when tested using different real water samples.
- The fast pollutant trapping capacity is attributed to faster diffusion of pollutants through the ordered interconnected presence of macropores in the material. It can also be used several times to clean contaminated water just like a bath sponge can be utilised to tackle multiple water spills.
Way Forward:
- This cationic compound is adaptable for sequestering various pollutants and is a possible solution to the water pollution problem. These results open up a new avenue for the creation of numerous sophisticated sorbent materials for practical water filtration.
In 2022, Madhya Pradesh loses more than double big cats compared to Karnataka
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in new?
- Karnataka, home to 524 tigers as per the 2018 census, is competing with Madhya Pradesh (526) for the tag of India’s ‘tiger State’
Current Tiger Census:
- The national tiger census is conducted once in every four years. The latest All India Tiger Estimation (AITE) was conducted in 2022 and its report is scheduled to be released in 2023.
- Madhya Pradesh lost 34 tigers in 2022, while its nearest rival for the “tiger State” status, Karnataka recorded the death of 15 big cats, according to data by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
- The NTCA is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change constituted under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, for strengthening tiger conservation.
- Total tiger deaths in India in the previous year stood at 117.
Longevity:
- The average age of tigers is 12 to 18 years.
- If longevity criteria are taken into account, then about 40 deaths annually should be considered natural as the State had recorded the presence of 526 tigers in the last estimation conducted in 2018.
- In 2021, Madhya Pradesh lost 42 tigers out of 127 fatalities recorded in the country that year.
- Around 250 cubs are born annually in Madhya Pradesh, which is home to six tiger reserves—Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Satpura, Panna and Sanjay-Dubri.
- Of the 34 tiger fatalities recorded in Madhya Pradesh during 2022, the biggest loss was suffered by the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, where nine big cats died in the 12-month period, followed by Pench (five) and Kanha (four).
‘Tiger State’ status:
- Madhya Pradesh (257 big cats) had lost the 'tiger State' tag to Karnataka (300) in the All-India Tiger Estimation exercise of 2010.
- In 2006, Madhya Pradesh had got the ‘tiger State’ status with 300 big cats compared to 290 in Karnataka.
- Panna is now estimated to inhabit around 70 tigers following a decade-long reintroduction programme.
- In the 2014 census, MP slipped to third position in the country with a population of 308 tigers, after Uttarakhand (340) and Karnataka (406).
- Madhya Pradesh regained the top position in the 2018 tiger census after it was found to be home to 526 felines, two more than Karnataka (524). Uttarakhand held the third position with 442 big cats.
- The estimated count of tigers in India had increased from 1,411 in 2006 to 2,967 in 2018.
