There are a lot of different uses for corn and now students at the University of Iowa developed a new one that helps fight harmful chemicals in the environment.

David Ramotowski and Qin Dong have found a new use for corn that fights PCBs in the soil with the help of bacteria.

David Ramotowski won this year’s Three Minute Thesis competition, in which graduate students share their research in three minutes or less to a general audience.

Synthetic polymers that mimic black carbon materials can be created in the laboratory and applied to soil and water along with specialized bacteria to break down hazardous contaminants. The development of these “tunable materials” and determining their impact on bioremediation of halogenated groundwater pollutants is the focus of a five-year $1.467 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences.

University of Iowa researchers have found a type of grass that was once a staple of the American prairie can remove soil laden with PCBs, toxic chemicals once used for cooling and other industrial purposes.