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Many of us may be aware of the high amount of mercury in canned tuna, but not how to reduce its excess. Bearing in mind that other factors also come into play, such as the company behind it, it is worth knowing how to find a solution to this ‘health problem’. And it lies in an aqueous solution that extracts mercury from fish.
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden claim to have developed a new packaging method that helps reduce mercury levels in cans. Our study shows that there are alternative approaches to tackling mercury contamination in tuna, rather than just limiting consumption,‘ Mehdi Abdollahi, associate professor in Chalmers’ Department of Life Sciences, told SciTechDaily about their new work.
The team would create a new canning method that puts tuna in an aqueous solution containing 1.2% cysteine, an amino acid that extracts mercury from fish. The cast found that the highest mercury reduction value was 35% when testing canned tuna from the supermarket.
They further explained that the method involves first treating them in solution and then adsorbing the mercury onto ‘thiolated silica powder and thiolated polymers’, which could be replicated using ‘adsorbent-filled sachets placed inside the container’. With this system, no further processing steps are required for the tuna, leading users to simply discard the water after opening the container, as they usually do.
