A University of Tulsa chemistry professor may elevate the status of a popular collegiate beverage, saying that beer may be a low-tech, low-cost solution to clean the orange-colored, iron-contaminated waters of one of the country's most urgent Superfund sites.
University of Tulsa chemistry professor Tom Harris may elevate the status of a popular collegiate beverage - beer.
The scholar says the alcoholic suds may be a low-tech, low-cost solution to clean the orange-colored, iron-contaminated waters of Oklahoma's Tar Creek, one of the country's most urgent Superfund sites. An Oklahoma governor's Tar Creek Superfund Task Force has recommended engineering man-made wetlands to capture some of the zinc, lead and calcium that has been traveling from nearby mine chat piles into the creek. Harris claims that expired beer improves efficiency of the man-made wetlands to clean the water.