Lipid lather removes metals

Metal contamination has been linked to birth defects, cancer, skin lesions, retardation, learning disabilities, liver and kidney damage, and a host of other maladies, and the United States alone will spend some $7 trillion over the next five years or so to clean up sites contaminated with metals. Until recently, there have only been a few time-consuming, costly methods for dealing with metal contamination in soils, but research developed at the University of Arizona uses biosurfactants, lipids that form emulsions between liquids of different polarities, to virtually "wash" metals out of contaminated soil. Lab tests show that 80-100% of single metals including cadmium and lead can be removed through the use of environmentally benign biosurfactants.