Research Description
We are studying natural materials called humic substances.
Humic substances (HSs) are remarkable brown, carbon-rich materials in coals, plants, water sediments and soils that retain water and selectively bind metals and other solutes. HSs are crucial environmental materials that make arable land out of deserts, but their structures are unknown despite 200 years of world wide effort. We were the first to find HSs in a live plant. Our work indicates that HSs isolated from different sources have the same or similar binding sites and molecular structures. We are studying HSs immobilization by attachment to clays and minerals for bioremediation and the effects of bound metals on HSs adsorptive properties to understand HSs environmental roles.