What is Synthediment(TM)???

I've had so many people ask me what exactly am I doing in the garage, and why exactly are you doing it, I started thinking how I might get the concept across to non-technicals.  There are so many fields of study involved in sediment toxicology and sediment geochemistry, that it can be an overwhelming chore for a non-technical person to grasp.  So after some thought and re-thought, here's my summary explanation for synthediment(TM):

Short Explanation:

I am developing a process/method to create a synthetic sediment (artificial lake/river/stream mud) that will act almost exactly like real lake/river/stream mud.  This material can be used by scientists who want to test real-world mud but don’t have a good reference to which to compare their results.  My artificial sediment can provide them the ability to get better test data and to make better decisions based on those data.

Long Explanation:

Cleaning the environment depends on having good data for three items: what part of the environment is contaminated (e.g., air?, soil?, water?, mud?), what is the identity of the contaminants present, and how much of each contaminant is out there.  Sometimes, environmental scientists suspect that the bottom mud of some lakes and rivers/streams may be contaminated.  In those cases, before clean-up can start, testing is done to find out what contaminants are in the mud, and in what amounts. 

Many small organisms (worms, clams, etc.) live in lake/river/stream mud; it is their preferred habitat.  When contaminant amounts in the mud get too high, the small critters either move or suffer biological harm.  Environmental scientists use this fact in their testing of lake/river/stream mud.  They collect samples of the mud and send them to a lab.  The lab scientists culture “clean and healthy” lab-organisms in their laboratory, and they use these lab-critters to test the mud samples.  A known number of lab-critters are added to smaller portions of the mud sample, and those lab-critters are fed for a known number of days.  At the end of the test period, lab scientists look through the mud to see if they find any of the lab-critters they added, and (if some are found) how they are doing biologically.  Contaminated mud can sometimes cause harm to the lab-critters, anything from DNA damage to slow growth or reproduction, all the way up to mortality. 

However, all good scientists know that there are many factors, or “experimental variables,” that can affect the outcome of a lab test, not just contaminants.  In the mud testing example, not only can contaminants cause harm to the lab-critters, but other things like improper habitat can also seem to harm lab-critters.  For instance, if a particular organism likes sandy textured river mud, it will not be healthy if forced to live in clay textured river mud.  In order to tell what factor is causing the outcome, all factors expect one must be matched.  Unfortunately, nature is so diverse that no two lakes, no two streams, or even no two mud locations in the same creek, are exactly the same.  So for mud testing, there is a lot of question as to what REALLY caused the outcome of a lab test.  Currently, lab scientists make educated guesses, apply reasonable assumptions, or they use mud from a lake/river/stream that they THINK is clean as the test “reference.”

The only way for a mud sample to be the same as a real/natural mud sample (except for the contaminants) is to create that mud sample.  A very few number of scientists have thought about this since 1980, and have proposed a very simple “mud” material made up of only 4 or 5 ingredients.  This simple artificial mud material is no where near equivalent to a real mud sample found in nature, which is a highly complex mixture of several dozen components or ingredients.  So it is my opinion that using this one recipe as a “reference” for testing all the different kinds of mud found in nature is not much better than using a mud sample from a lake/river/stream that they THINK is clean.

This is the problem that my project aims to address.  My method/procedure will create synthetic mud using as many as 30 ingredients, each ingredient designed to be the equivalent of a component found in real mud in nature.  The exact procedures I am developing for selecting ingredients, pre-cleaning or pre-treating raw materials, creating other complex ingredients found in real mud, and combining all these ingredients are based on over 10 years of researching scientific reports and papers in scientific fields of study such as toxicology, geology, marine biology, environmental engineering, and others.  My methods can produce not just one artificial mud material, but can be adapted to match almost any real mud sample found in nature.  This will allow me to offer the equivalent of hundreds of artificial mud materials, tailor-made to meet the lab scientists’ needs.

I am at the stage of development where I have developed all my procedures on paper, and now I am testing the implementation and scale-up of these procedures.  I am marketing my ideas to laboratories in hopes that they will agree to test some samples of my material in their laboratories, side-by-side with real mud samples.  The information I hope to gather from these collaboration tests with labs is whether my material is suitable as habitat for lab-critters they may have growing in their laboratories, and whether I can reproduce the results consistently.  Eventually, I hope to be a supplier of synthetic mud to all commercial laboratories, university departments of environmental studies, and government agencies (both State, Federal and international) involved with dealing with contaminated lake/river/stream mud.