An inexpensive new material made from sulphur and substances found in orange peels could help clean up mercury pollution.

The dark red non-toxic polymer has the ability to suck mercury from the water, and turns bright yellow when it does so, Flinders University reported. The material can be produced cheaply because of the world's abundance of sulphur and limonene, which is found in orange peels.

"Mercury contamination plagues many areas of the world, affecting both food and water supplies and creating a serious need for an efficient and cost effective method to trap this mercury," said Flinders University's Justin Chalker. "Until now, there has been no such method, but the new sulphur-limonene polysulfide addresses this urgent need."

Mercury has been found in food and water supplies around the world, and consumption of fish is one of the most common sources of human exposure.  Mercury consumption and absorption can lead to damage the central nervous system, it is also extremely dangerous for pregnant women. This new material could be applied to water pipes carrying domestic and wastewater, and could even be used to clean up large bodies of water.

"More than 70 million [tons] of sulphur is produced each year by the petroleum industry, so there are literally mountains of it lying, unused, around the globe, while more than 70 thousand tons of limonene is produced each year by the citrus industry (limonene is found mainly in orange peels)," Chalker said. "So not only is this new polymer good for solving the problem of mercury pollution, but it also has the added environmental bonus of putting this waste material to good use while converting them into a form that is much easier to store so that once the material is 'full' it can easily be removed and replaced."

The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.