And Dirt Goes Flying at the Speed of Sound

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just shout at the mess in your kitchen and have it disappear? While that’s still a pipe dream, researchers at The Ohio State University are taking steps in the right direction, working to use sound waves to remove contaminants from Lake Erie sediment.

Dr. Linda Weavers and her team, funded in part by Ohio Sea Grant, aim to develop a device that can remove contamination, such as mercury, from river and lake sediments without having to dredge that sediment up first. When combined with a method to either remove that contamination or more permanently bind it to another material, this sonication technology could make remediation efforts like the recently completed Ashtabula River clean-up faster, easier and more cost-effective.