New Delhi, June 7 -- Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, have found that clay particles interact differently in the presence of SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - a finding they used for developing a simple, affordable testing alternative.
The approach developed looks at how quickly particles of clay settle in a salt water solution containing the virus.
"Due to changes in inter-particle forces of clay in the presence of the virus, the sedimentation rate of the clay-electrolyte system changed," the authors wrote in the study published in the journal Applied Clay Science. The findings offer a "simple and affordable" alternative to the complex, expensive methods currently used for detecting SARS-CoV-...