A capsule for removing radioactive contamination from milk, fruit juices, other beverages

Amid concerns about possible terrorist attacks with nuclear materials, and fresh memories of environmental contamination from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, scientists today described development of a capsule that can be dropped into water, milk, fruit juices and other foods to remove more than a dozen radioactive substances. In a presentation at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, theresearchers said the technology could be used on a large scale by food processors or packaged into a small capsule that consumers at the home-kitchen level could pop into beverage containers. "We repurposed and repackaged for radioactive decontamination of water and beverages a tried-and-true process that originally was developed to mine the oceans for uranium and remove uranium and heavy metals from heavily contaminated water," said Allen Apblett, who led the research team.