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The Effect of Microgravity on the Use of Cactus Mucilage for Water Purification

The Effect of Microgravity on the Use of Cactus Mucilage for Water Purification. By : Jesus Castor and N aiki A rmendariz. Mentor: Dr. Gertrud Konings. El Paso Community College. Background. Cactus was a lready used by 19th century Mexican communities to purify water

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The Effect of Microgravity on the Use of Cactus Mucilage for Water Purification

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  1. TheEffect of Microgravityonthe Use of Cactus MucilageforWaterPurification By: Jesus Castor and NaikiArmendariz Mentor: Dr. GertrudKonings El Paso CommunityCollege

  2. Background Cactus wasalreadyusedby 19th centuryMexicancommunitiestopurifywater Dr. Norma Alcantar’sresearch at theUniversity of South Florida provedthatmucilage can removearsenic and ironfromwater

  3. Experiment’s Rationale Chromiumwaschosenbecause of itspresenceonmoon’ssurfacebesidesiron Therefore steel production on the moon is being considered Chromium-VI would be produced as a waste and could contaminate moon water The mucilage of the Prickly Pear,Opuntiaficusindica, an edible cactus, can be a solution to chromium removal from contaminated water

  4. Objective Test the effect of microgravity on the mucilage’s ability of removing heavy metals, in particular chromium-VI

  5. Compositionof Cactus Mucilage Cactus mucilageistheclearslimy fluid secretedwhen a stemsegment (cladode) isdamaged Themaincomponent of theGellingExtract (GE) mucilageis a pectin Pectins are foundbetweenthecells and in thecellwalls of mostplants

  6. PurificationProperty of Mucilage Whenextraced, GE pectiniscoveredby a layer of Ca2+ ions. Whenchromium-VI reactswiththepectin, Cr6+ displaces Ca2+ ions, giving the pectin an outside layer of Cr6+ions. When chromium-VI binds to pectin, a greater and heavier flock is formed, which sediments to the bottom under Earth’s gravity conditions, leaving the water in the middle free of chromium-VI.

  7. Hypothesis Microgravityshouldnotaffectthechromiumbinding, sincethebindingisanionicreaction.Thusthepurificationprocessisexpectedtowork

  8. ExperimentDesign FME Main Volume Short Ampoule A Short Ampoule B

  9. 1st Experiment • Cube of cactus placed in 1.00 mg/L chromiumsolutionfortwoweeks, thenrinsedseveral times in alcohol • Cactus pieceobservedunderthe HITACHI TM-1000 ScanningElectronMicroscope (SEM) and measured in X-rayacquisition

  10. 2nd Experiment 2 ml of liquified cactus + 2ml of 1.00 mg/L chromiumsolution + 2ml of 100 % alcohol Afteroneday, solutionmeasured in a HACH DR 2800 spectrophotometer

  11. 3rd Experiment Flight experiment trial: 6.3 ml of 1.00 mg/l chromium, 0.92 ml mucilage, and 0.92 ml of 100% alcohol Waitsevendaystoadd alcohol and readsolution in HACH DR 2800 spectrophotometer Parallelexperimentswithseveralconcentrations of mucilage

  12. 4th Experiment 6.3 ml of 1.0 mg/l of Cr-VI solution + 0.92 ml of mucilage (differentconcentrations) + 0.92 of 100% ethanol Solutionmeasureddirectlyfromthe test tube and afterfiltrationtoremovemucilage

  13. 4th Experiment cont. • 6.3 ml of 1.0 mg/l of Cr-VI solution + 0.92 ml of mucilage + 0.92 of 100% ethanol • Solution measured directly from the test tube and after centrifugation

  14. Conclusions Fromtheexperimentsperformedthe final design of theflightexperimentwasdetermined: 10 mg/l GE mucilagewill be used and themucilagewill be filteredoutof thesolutionbeforemeasurement Stillwaitingtogetourexperiment back fromspace

  15. Student Team Members Co-principal investigators & collaborators Jesus Castor[1], NaikiArmendariz[1], Dr. Gertrud Konings[1], Dr. Maria Arteaga[1], Dr. Norma A. Alcantar [2], Dr. Alfonso Bencomo[3] 1.-RISE program, El Paso Community College, El Paso, TX 79925, USA 2.-Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA 3.-Departamento de Investigación de Genética Humana, Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco 44100, MX

  16. Financial Support Texas Space Grant Consortium, Austin, Texas NIH MBRS-RISE (Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement) Grant #5R256M060424 El Paso Community College A special Thank-You to all our supporters, especially also to Jeff Goldstein and HarriVanhalla for making this project possible.

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