MFNS Heads West for Phosphate Remediation!

Excess phosphorous nutrient pollution due to agricultural runoff and industrial sources presents one of the current great challenges facing the environment. It leads to algae blooms and eutrophication which threaten not only entire ecosystems but communal drinking water sources. To compound this problem, the current approach of removing phosphates from bodies of water is capitally intense and produces a toxic byproduct requiring specialized landfills for further activated waste treatment. In this pilot MFNS presents a novel filtration media leveraging specifically tailored nanostructures as a means of selectively removing phosphates from polluted water sources. Utilizing a consistently phosphorus-polluted stream in western Idaho, water was taken directly from the stream and was filtered through the MFNS Magnetic Nano Structure (MNS) media to demonstrate selective phosphate reduction. Using a flow-based filtration method, the MFNS team was able to remove up to 71% of the total phosphorous content from the water pulled from the stream.