Category: Projects

In the Madre de Dios region of Peru, gold mining has been going on for several years with the use of various toxic substances and heavy metals. These substances enter the environment and the food chain of people living in the area. The accumulation of heavy metals in the body often causes health problems. One of the properties of humic acids is the ability to bind heavy metals to themselves, including in the digestive tract of humans and animals, thus helping the body’s detoxification. That’s why Dr. Rafael Pizarro Alvis is making great efforts to get nutritional supplements based on humic acids into this area.

Polyaromatic hydrocarbons are a frequent environmental contaminant. Their removal from the soil is a challenge. In cooperation with colleagues from Hungary, we proposed a soil revitalization procedure without the need to excavate the soil and haul it away, simply by spraying the contaminated soil with an aqueous enzyme solution. Subsequently, it is necessary to restore the soil with the help of humic acids.

Polychlorinated biphenyls were initially considered completely harmless, but today they are known to cause various health problems. In the vicinity of the former chemical plant, there are still a large number of old barrels with PCB substances, which are gradually being released into the environment. in 2021, we performed tests on poultry and eggs from a village near the plant and found increased levels of PCB substances, especially in eggs. In cooperation with the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava, we are testing the ability of humic substances to retain PCB substances in the soil. And the initial results look promising.

The tailings pond near the village of Nižná Slaná contains a large amount of toxic substances, especially heavy metals. For this reason, almost no vegetation grows on the tailings pond, which is the reason for the blowing of toxic dust into the surrounding area.
Our effort was to revitalize the soil and promote the growth of grass, which would eliminate the spread of toxic dust.

In 2010, the red sludge dam broke in Hungary. This sludge contained a large amount of contaminants, especially heavy metals, and the sludge itself had a very high pH of around 13. Applying freshly mined Leonardite managed to reduce the pH of the soil to an acceptable 7.5, and the treated soil even started to germinate crops sown within days.