Newly published research by a Dickinson College chemistry professor is advancing what we know about the power of fruit and vegetable peels to remove pollutants, such as dyes and heavy metals, from water. Cindy Samet, professor of chemistry, and her students performed water purification experiments using peels and seeds from more than a dozen varieties of foods—from pumpkin and okra to lemon and banana—and found they removed methylene blue, lead and copper through the process of adsorption, a chemical bonding of the pollutant molecules to the surface of the peels.