Novel Hybrid Porous Materials for the Selective Capture of Contaminants and/or Valuable Metal Ions from Water

Increased demand for electronics and other technologies that utilize heavy metals has resulted in an increased number of contaminants being discharged into the environment. Heavy metal contamination at low concentrations has well-documented and long-lasting deleterious effects on aquatic life as well as human health. The most pervasive heavy metal contaminants include but are not limited to lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and chromium. The current technologies used to treat these pollutants exhibit several disadvantages such as low removal efficiency, high fouling rates, and inadequate selectivity which ultimately result in high energy cost and low operating lifetimes. To overcome these issues, a suite of tailorable adsorption materials will be developed that can selectively remediate valuable and/or toxic metal ions from water. Feasibility efforts during the Phase I research program demonstrated the development of adsorption media in several form factors with a variety of active materials, resulting in a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 3. Based on the needs of industrial and municipal customers as well as filtration technology manufacturers, Phase II efforts will focus on understanding the structure-activity relationship of selective additives and their interactions with binders to optimize the sorbent performance. Down-selected materials will be tested in pilot-scale studies for potential customers to test the sorbents against industrial standards and bring the SBIR technology to a TRL of at least 6. The high metal ion selectivity of the down- selected sorbent media will significantly increase the energy efficiency of heavy metal ion capture processes, reduce fouling of the material, and enable more cost-effective water remediation for multiple industries and applications.