Charged clay particles bind to Newcastle disease virus and remove it from solutions. Credit: Langmuir 2023, 39, 23, 8042–8054/ © 2023 American Chemical Society
Bentonite and kaolin, two types of clay, can prevent virus-contaminated biomedical wastes leaching during transport and disposal in landfill1.
The materials showed efficiency in removing Newcastle disease virus (NDV) from solutions containing virus-infected cells. NDV infects birds and is used as a substitute for coronavirus in vaccine studies.
This study offers a promising solution for managing pathogenic waste after the COVID-19 pandemic, says a team at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in Assam.
The scientists, led by Bharat Venkata Tadikonda and Sachin Kumar, experimented with the diffusion of virus-loaded solutions from a source reservoir passing through bentonite or kaolin, sandwiched between porous stones, to a collector reservoir.
The virus concentration in the source reservoir decreased with time and was zero in the collector reservoir throughout the experiments.
Bentonite was exposed to a much higher virus concentration than the kaolin. Bentonite removed more than 99% of the virus within 15 minutes, while kaolin took two hours to remove more than 90%.
The researchers say the charged clay particles bound to the surface proteins of the viruses. The virus-attached clay particles were then separated from the solutions by centrifugation.
