Tiny sphere can trap water pollutant-  source The Hindu

• Scientists have created tiny sphere that can catch and destroy bis phenol A (BPA), a synthetic chemical used to make plastics that often contaminates water.
•  BPA is commonly used to coat the insides food cans, bottle tops and water supply lines and once it was a component of baby bottles also.
• BPA that seeps into  food and drink is considered safe in low dose but more usage can affect the  health contributing to high blood pressure.
•  A sphere similar to Venus' flytrap of particles for water remediation was developed by  a university based on US.
• The micron-sized spheres is like a tiny flower like collections of titanium dioxide petals.
• This flexible petals provide plenty of surface area to anchor cylcodextrin which is used in food and drugs.
• It is basically a two faced structure- Hydrophobic cavity and Hydrophilic outer surface.
• BPA is hydrophobic,once it is trapped the relative oxygen species produced by the sphere degrades BPA to harmless chemicals.
• It is found that 200mg of the sphere per liter of contaminated water degraded 90% of BPA in an hour.
• The size of the particle is less than 100 nanometers.