Soil treatment that captures dangerous
neurotoxins
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 8, 2022
/PRNewswire/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), a
leader in the global specialty chemicals industry, today unveiled a
breakthrough product that captures mercury from soil and mining
waste, helping to remove this harmful element from the food
chain.
MercLok™ is a soil treatment for mercury remediation. Known in
the industry as an amendment, MercLok cost-effectively captures
mercury in soil, mining waste and, through in-ground treatment,
groundwater over the long term, capturing the potent and highly
mobile neurotoxin.
"As a values-driven company, we pride ourselves on innovating
products that minimize negative impacts to the environment and
surrounding communities," said Mark de
Boer, vice president of Sustainability, Albemarle. "Our new MercLok technology is
another proof point in our efforts for making the world safe and
sustainable."
Mercury and mercury compounds are prevalent around power,
chemical, and some manufacturing plants as well as many gold mines
and mercury mines. It affects humans who consume seafood or have
occupational exposure, including more than one in 1000 children in
subsistence fishing populations. Different forms of mercury can
have different effects on people's nervous, digestive, and immune
systems, and on the lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes, but the mercury
found in seafood is the most toxic. (World Health Organization)
Elemental mercury (or quicksilver) is difficult to contain
and expensive to dispose of, and when not contained it dissolves
and volatilizes, spreading the environmental, health and safety
hazard. As mercury spreads in the environment, it can be
transformed into methylmercury (the most toxic form of mercury) by
bacteria. Methylmercury is responsible for bioaccumulation of
mercury in organisms such as fish, which makes them harmful when
consumed. Therefore, solutions for immobilizing elemental mercury
and reducing methylmercury in the environment are needed.
MercLok sequesters elemental and ionic mercury in the
environment by capturing and stabilizing the mercury, thus reducing
leachability by more than 99%. MercLok can reduce methylmercury
concentration in treated media by over 99%. These results are
verified with standard testing methods and field trials monitoring
contaminated media leachates and water.
MercLok is positioned to be a leader in the marketplace with
rapid capture at low dosage rates and long-term stabilization of
mercury.
"Mercury is known as quicksilver for a reason," said
Jon Miller, Research and Technology
advisor, Albemarle. "It's
dangerously mobile, working its way through soil, water, air, into
the food chain, and into our tissues and nervous system. MercLok
immobilizes the poison, meaning it's locked down to avoid harm in
the environment or to humans."
MercLok can be applied to contaminated media using existing
remediation techniques, including in-situ mechanical blending, and
direct-push injection. It can also be injected to form permeable
reactive groundwater barriers. MercLok is non-hazardous to workers
who handle the product with the recommended personal protective
equipment, and it is safe for the ecological environment when used
as intended. MercLok will be manufactured and sold by Albemarle
Amendments, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Albemarle
Corporation.
About Albemarle
Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) is a global specialty
chemicals company with leading positions in lithium, bromine, and
catalysts. We think beyond business as usual to power the potential
of companies in many of the world's largest and most critical
industries, such as energy, electronics, and transportation. We
actively pursue a sustainable approach to managing our diverse
global footprint of world-class resources. In conjunction with our
highly experienced and talented global teams, our deep-seated
values, and our collaborative customer relationships, we create
value-added and performance-based solutions that enable a safer and
more sustainable future.
We regularly post information to www.albemarle.com,
including notification of events, news, financial performance,
investor presentations and webcasts, non-GAAP reconciliations, SEC
filings and other information regarding our company, its businesses
and the markets it serves.
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SOURCE Albemarle Corporation