A Perfect MATCH Promising Technology Uses Algae, Sound Waves to Remove Mercury
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TWINELINE 2 0 0 8 W I N T E R E D I T I O N V O L . 3 0 / N O . 1 A Perfect MATCH Promising technology uses algae, sound waves to remove mercury ATMOSPH ND ER A IC IC A N D A M E I C N O I S L T A R N A T O I I O T N A N U E .S . C D R E E P M A M Ohio Sea Grant College Program RT O MENT OF C TABLE OF TWINELINE OHIO SEA GRANT The Ohio State University 1314 Kinnear Rd. Columbus, OH 43212-1156 Phone: 614.292.8949 Fax: 614.292.4364 CONTENTS ohioseagrant.osu.edu 2 0 0 8 W I N T E R E D I T I O N V O L . 3 0 / N O . 1 OHIO SEA GRANT STAFF Dr. Jeffrey M. Reutter, Director [email protected] Dr. Rosanne W. Fortner, Education Coordinator Page [email protected] Jill Jentes Banicki, GLROC: Great Lakes Research and Outreach Consortium ...........................3 Assistant Director [email protected] A Perfect Match ..........................................................................................4 Eugene Braig, Assistant Director [email protected] In Their Own Words: Lake Erie Discussion Board .......................................6 Stacy Brannan, Associate Editor [email protected] OSG Extension Promotes Shipwreck Education ..........................................8 Nancy Cruickshank, Publications Manager OSU Partnership Saves Stone Lab Water Supply ......................................10 [email protected] George Oommen, System Engineer New 2008 Stone Lab Courses ....................................................................11 [email protected] Davin Riley, Office Associate Fall Fish-Sampling Techniques Workshop .................................................12 [email protected] John Tripp, Fiscal Manager FOSL ......................................................................................................13-15 [email protected] Student Spotlight Daniella Nordin, Intern Buckeye FOSL [email protected] David Surovec, Intern Fish Lake Erie License Plate .......................................................................16 [email protected] EXTENSION AGENTS Frank R. Lichtkoppler*, Lake & Ashtabula Counties 440.350.2582 Help send a kid to Stone Lab. Buy a backpack! [email protected] Fred L. Snyder*, Ottawa County 419.635.1022 [email protected] Proceeds go directly to Stone Lab *Program Co-Coordinators student scholarships. Gary L. Comer, Jr., Ohio Clean Marinas Program 419.609.4120 [email protected] Choose from red, royal blue, or black. John R. Hageman, Jr., Qty. 1: $5 + $2 shipping Ottawa County 614.247.6500 2-10: $5 /ea. + $5 shipping [email protected] 11 or more: Call 614.292.8949 Make checks payable to: OSU Melinda Huntley, Tourism Director 419.609.0399 Mail to: Ohio Sea Grant Publications [email protected] 1314 Kinnear Rd. Pg.Columbus, 14 OH 43212 David O. Kelch, Erie & Lorain Counties Sorry, we cannot accept credit cards. 440.326.5851 [email protected] Pg. 19 Questions? Contact Nancy Cruickshank at 614.292.8949 or [email protected] Joe Lucente, Lucas County 419.213.4254 [email protected] Twine Line (ISSN 1064-6418) is published four times a year by the Ohio Sea Grant College Program at The Ohio State University, 1314 Kinnear Rd., Columbus, OH 43212-1156. Subscrip- tion price is $10.00 per year (four issues). The opinions expressed are those of the authors only. Please contact the office to obtain permission before reprinting articles or graphics. Matt Thomas, Stone Laboratory Ohio Sea Grant is a statewide program that supports greater knowledge and stewardship of Lake Erie and the Great Lakes. It is part of the NOAA Sea Grant College Program (NOAA grant NA16RG2252, project M/P-2), which includes 32 state programs. Support of Ohio Sea Grant is provided by National Sea Grant, the State of Ohio, The Ohio State University, Ohio 419.285.1846 State University Extension, and participating universities, agencies, and businesses. [email protected] Walter D. Williams, Cuyahoga County 216.621.3300 [email protected] 2 TWINELINE 2008 WINTER EDITION New Sea Grant Consortium to Coordinate Regional Research and Outreach rom Lake Superior in the west to propose and develop projects for carried out simultaneously. Our new to Lake Ontario in the east, the entire region as well as accept consortium is specifically designed to Fthere are five Great Lakes. But and distribute funds to the other six foster that kind of relevant program.” there are seven Sea Grant Programs programs. The seven Sea Grant Programs that serve the Great Lakes region, “The Great Lakes Sea Grant in the Great Lakes region are: and this past June, the programs Programs have a great history of Illinois/Indiana Sea Grant College announced the formation of the collaborating. GLROC will make Program, Michigan Sea Grant Great Lakes Research and Outreach it easier for us to collaborate, share College Program, Minnesota Sea Consortium (GLROC). Three years and easily transfer leadership among Grant College Program, New York in the making, GLROC is designed to the seven programs, and make it Sea Grant College Program, Ohio Sea foster communication, cooperation, easier for sponsors to support all Grant College Program, Pennsylvania coordination, and collaboration on seven programs with a single award,” Sea Grant Program, and Wisconsin research, education, and outreach stated Dr. Jeff Reutter, Director, Sea Grant Institute. projects that address regional Ohio Sea Grant. Sea Grant is the primary university- problems and opportunities. “Each of the lakes is bordered by based program of the Department of Issues such as water quality, invasive several states and/or a Canadian Commerce’s National Oceanographic species, and fisheries often cross province,” said Dr. Jack Mattice, and Atmospheric Administration state boundaries. The formation of Director of New York Sea Grant. “The (NOAA), located in each coastal state, a consortium to connect the seven issues that affect each lake often affect to promote better understanding, Sea Grant programs will provide the the region as a whole and can best be conservation and use of America’s means for any one of the programs addressed by coordinated programs coastal resources. TL TWINELINE 2008 WINTER EDITION 3 A Perfect MATCH Promising technology uses algae, sound waves to remove mercury by Daniella Nordin, Ohio Sea Grant Communications reat Lakes can mean great decrease the likelihood that mercury will waves moving through water to create millions challenges. For more than 30 years, end up in your fish dinner. Ohio Sea Grant of tiny cavitation bubbles. The tiny bubbles G one of the greatest for those lakes researchers Drs. Linda Weavers and Richard expand, contract, and then violently collapse has been mercury pollution. Mercury, a Sayre of Ohio State University have found in a few microseconds to generate pressures highly toxic heavy metal found mostly as a a way to efficiently extract mercury from up to several thousand pounds per square inch by-product from coal-burning electric power lake sediment before it even gets a chance to and temperatures as hot as the surface of the plants, typically migrates from industrial trek up the Great Lakes food web. And the sun (up to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). “As the smokestacks and eventually settles into process makes use of a very unlikely pair; bubbles implode, they form tiny water jets that the Great Lake sediments. The problem is sound waves and engineered algae. smash into sediment particles at 100 to 1,000 mercury doesn’t normally stay put, traveling meters per second and remove contaminants,” up the food web by way of hungry plankton One Sea Grant Project Weavers states. and insect larvae that nibble on that lake Sparks Another Weavers’ sound waves worked so well, in sediment, which in turn accumulates in the Four years ago, Dr. Linda Weavers, fact, that within two minutes, 33 percent of fish we consume. Associate Professor in Ohio State’s College of the mercury was extracted from the model But a new research process developed Engineering, discovered that ultrasound or sediment. by two Ohio Sea Grant scientists could sonication could be used to very successfully A problem, however, occurred at the break loose contaminants such 60-minute mark of the process, when the as PCBs and heavy metals majority of the mercury was pulled from like mercury bound to Lake the sediment. “We discovered that mercury Erie sediments. “Sonication started reattaching itself back onto the uses sound waves to trigger sediment at that point,” says Weavers. “We intense chemical, physical, and needed to find something that could pull thermal reactions,” Weavers that mercury out of the water before it explains. “We realized we started reattaching itself.” could harness the power these reactions create to loosen up Combining Efforts: Sound contaminants once locked in Waves Unite with Algae sediments.” Meet Dr. Richard Sayre, Professor of The technology uses Plant, Cellular, and Molecular Biology at alternating compression and Ohio State. For nearly 15 years, Sayre, has Mercury travels up the food web, collecting in the fish that are caught in Lake Erie. expansion cycles of ultrasound been using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii—a 4 TWINELINE 2008 WINTER EDITION These scanning electron microscope images show particles of Lake Erie sediment before sonication (left) and after (right). Ohio Sea Grant scientists Weavers and Sayre developed a new technology to extract mercury locked in Lake Erie sediment. With a combined system of sound waves and algae, more than 30% of mercury was extracted from Lake Erie sediment within 30 minutes. unicellular alga found all over the world—to extract 30 percent do many unlikely things for Sea Grant, of the mercury in including separate heavy metals from Lake 30 minutes with Erie sediment, vaccinate Lake Erie fish, and the combination of mass produce a bioterrorism antidote. sonication and algae. “Dr. Sayre likes to say that there isn’t At the 30-minute anything his alga can’t do,” says Weavers.