Cntaminacion

At present a serious problem affecting the natural resources and therefore the human body is pollution by mercury.
The mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, Contacting anaquatic environment, mercury is transformed into methylmercury, a potent neurotoxicant that accumulates in fish and humans and wildlife that eat them.
It is believed that methyl mercury is one of thesix worst pollutants planet.
Mercury never disappears from the environment, ensuring that today is a pollution problem in the future.
The main sources of mercury pollution are natural due tolandslides or erosion of the earth's crust, and the man in industrial processes, the most important and which cause 75 percent of pollution.
Mercury is used in industry for the manufacture of electrical andscientific equipment such as batteries, lamps, thermometers, barometers, etc. Its use in pesticides, seed preservatives, paints and cosmetics has been restricted in some countries, but there are stillmany companies that use it.
Thermal power plants that produce electricity by consuming coal, and other industrial plants, emit large amounts of mercury into the atmosphere. Engineers work toeliminate this dangerous metal, using techniques originally developed for the space program.
The most recent, carried out by experts from the University of Florida, uses ultraviolet light and silica. Wasdesigned to treat and reuse water that is found on board the International Space Station (ISS).
The metal is released into the atmosphere by volcanoes, forest fires, burning coal, and so on. Can bedeposited in lakes and rivers.
Only in the United States are in service 1140 thermal coal. By 2010 sixty be releasing tons of mercury annually into the atmosphere.
The best current technology forremoving mercury involves injecting tiny particles of activated carbon, an absorbent material that is used in many filtration systems, directly into the chimney. The process, however, has its problems. It...