Newscripts
initial theory, it seemed, now held water. But not every-
Curating quirky science since 1943
Green chemistry at
the Rio Olympics
he diving pool at the Rio Olympic Games
T made waves earlier this month by going from
a healthy blue to a muddled and befuddling
shade of green in a matter of hours.
The adjacent water polo pool soon followed suit.
Olympic officials first blamed algae. Then the Inter-
national Swimming Federation said that the pools had
run out of the chemicals needed to maintain a proper
Green with envy. Or
algae. Or copper:
You can’t prove it
isn’t envy …
pH, resulting in the sickly hue. Athletes complained of
fart smells and poor visibility in the water as the aquat-
ics center tried unsuccessfully to clear up the water.
Finally, after days of public scrutiny, Olympic offi-
cials held a press conference to offer the following final
explanation: A well-meaning worker dumped 160 L of
hydrogen peroxide into the water the day of the open-
ing ceremony, but the intended disinfec-
tant instead disarmed the pools’ biocidal Matt Davenport
chlorine, as reported by the New York Times. wrote this week’s
This stripped the pools of their best de- column. Please
fense against microorganisms. send comments
Although the officials stopped short of and suggestions to
naming algae at the press conference, their newscripts@acs.org. accept what is and wonder what could have been.
48 C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | AUGUST 29, 2016
one is buying it, and many suspect an alternative cupric
culprit.
An article in Forbes posited that an excessive amount
of copper sulfate, a blue salt used to kill algae in pools,
turned the water green. Once in the water, the metal
would readily form emerald-colored copper chloride
complexes and the sulfate could react to form hydro-
gen sulfide, which is the source of stinky fart smell.
The article also argued that algae grow too slowly to
cloud and discolor an entire Olympic-sized pool in a
matter of hours. “I think I have to agree with the Forbes
writer,” says Stephen Miller, whose group studies green
algae at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
“We would be thrilled to get that kind of growth, at that
scale, in my lab. If that green color really is due to algal
growth, I want to isolate those species.”
“Any color change that happens that quickly does
point to a chemical reaction rather than anything
biological,” agrees Philip Larese-Casanova, an envi-
ronmental engineer who studies water pollutants at
Northeastern University.
Still, it’s a little more difficult to explain away the
pools’ murk with chemistry than with an algal explana-
tion. But perhaps we should allow
ourselves some wiggle room. After
all, as Rio spokesperson Mario
Andrada told the media during the
pool cleanup efforts: “Chemistry is
not an exact science.”
Copper could precipitate and
form colloidal particles to cloud
the water under the right condi-
tions, Larese-Casanova says. Or
copper particles could have come
from deteriorating piping in the
pools’ plumbing, he says. He’s not
the first to float this theory, but
neither he nor the Newscripts
sleuths could track down what the
plumbing is made of.
So the copper hypothesis is not
without its own insufficiencies.
And at least one researcher famil-
iar with algae gives the microor-
ganisms a fighting chance in the
pool. In the absence of chlorine
and predators, algae could thrive
in Rio’s warmth and sunshine, says
CREDIT: CAO C/ZUMA PRESS/SPLASH NEWS/NEWSCOM
Ferdi L. Hellweger, a colleague of
Larese-Casanova’s who studies microbial ecology at
Northeastern. “And if the water is clear otherwise, the
color of the algae can come out strongly,” he says.
He adds that it’s unlikely that the bloom blossomed
from a single cell but a larger population could have
been seeded in the outdoor pool, perhaps dropped off
by a bird. Stranger things than algae have turned up in
Rio’s waters.
The real cause may remain forever unknown. It would
have been easy to find answers with standard tests, our
sources say, but the pools were drained and refilled
ahead of the synchronized swimming events. Like a
bunch of silver medalists, the Newscripts gang is left to