GREENSBORO, N.C. - Nutshells could be used one day to decontaminate water, using new technology being developed in the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, a food scientist with a flair for finding new uses for agricultural byproducts, is developing a process for converting pecan shells into activated carbon adsorbents for removing chemical or petroleum contaminants from drinking water. He has been awarded a $299,870 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop the technique and to build a prototype well filter.

The new adsorbent would be virtually identical to the substance used in existing well or countertop water filters, but would have several major advantages. Unlike present adsorbents, which are derived from coal or petroleum, the product would make use of a renewable resource. It would also do a better job because it can be manufactured to target specific cleanup tasks. In addition, it would save consumers money. Ahmedna anticipates the cost would be one-fifth to one-tenth the cost for present day adsorbants, which range in price from $5 to $20 per pound.

The environment, nut farmers and rural households all stand to benefit from the project. Approximately 7 million rural households are without safe drinking water or have contaminated private wells. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 1 million Americans become sick each year from drinking contaminated water. Pesticides, herbicides and other contaminants such as heavy metals, nitrites and volatile organics are common culprits.

Though Ahmedna is focusing on pecans because of their ready availability in North Carolina, the technology could easily be adapted for hard nutshells of any kind. It even could be further refined to make use of soybean hulls, peanut shells or other carbon-based agricultural byproducts. Additional applications could emerge once industry becomes aware of its existence. For instance, it is feasible that it could be adapted to pre-treat water from hog lagoons prior to spraying it on fields, Ahmedna said.

Other N.C. A&T faculty collaborating on the project are: Dr. Ipek Goktepe, an environmental toxicologist; Dr. Shamsuddin Ilias, a chemical engineer; Dr. Kofi Adu-Nyako, an economist, and Dr. Jimo Ibrahim, a cooperative extension specialist.

The nut shell project is just one facet of Ahmedna's active research program. The university recently presented him with a Faculty Innovators Award for his patent pending on a portable biosensor that food inspectors could use to instantaneously detect pathogens. He is also engaged in a project with the west African country of Senegal to create a cholesterol-free meat substitute made from the byproduct of peanut oil processing. Ahmedna is also conducting research into plant extracts that could be used to lower cholesterol and fight disease, and is testing an array of commercially available margarines for levels of harmful trans fatty acid.