The textile and leather tanning industry is known for its pollution of water bodies.

If not handled properly, the chemicals used to make these fabrics and leathers can have an adverse effect.

Fortunately, students from the Physics Department of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have been exploring scientific methods to remove these hazardous wastes from water bodies.

According to a 2017 report in the Journal of Environmental and Geosciences, the tanning and textile industries are the main pollutants of the environment.

Since the discharged waste is untreated, they can easily cause water pollution.  

Physics students Frederick Eshun and John Kwesi Kwakye explained that the research was affected by excessive chemical waste water deposited by the textile and tannery industry in Ghana.

"We investigated how the water bodies in the community were polluted. Moreover, we realized that we had not paid much attention to the pollution caused by the tanning and textile industries.

"So after reading the literature, we noticed that we can use zinc oxide, a nanocomposite compound, to degrade these wastes," they said.

The cleaning technology uses a substance called lanthanum-doped zinc oxide to reduce graphene oxide to degrade these chemicals in the sun.

Frederick explained that the newly developed cleaning technology has proven to be more effective than the traditional method of using only zinc oxide to degrade these chemical wastes.

"Initially, the method used to degrade these wastes was zinc oxide. However, we realized that it is less effective in degrading chemical wastes from these industries.

"But with the knowledge gained in science, we believe that using reduced graphene oxide and lanthanum to degrade these water pollutants is wise and more efficient," he said.

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