Heavy metal ions are released into the environment from man-made sources and can cause significant negative impacts. These non-biodegradable elements are persistent in the environment and can increase in concentration as they travel up the food chain via bioaccumulation, posing a serious threat to soils, plants, animals, and humans. There is a need for highly selective filtration materials that can target these ions in water with a high degree of selectivity and adsorption capacity in a cost and energy efficient manner. Tetramer Technologies is developing a novel, robust, commercial adsorbent filtration medium that will enable the rapid, selective capture of toxic heavy metal contaminants in water sources. The innovation of this technology is the modular design capabilities that will allow customization of adsorbent properties for specific applications. Example uses could include remediation of contaminated water sources in third- world countries where industrial wastes have polluted natural resources or recovery of precious metal catalysts from a manufacturerÂ’s waste stream which allows catalysts to be reclaimed and recycled yielding lower operational costs. In either case, a customized, high selectivity adsorbent filtration medium is ideal because it will capture target analytes with high selectivity and mitigate fouling by non-target matrix contaminants. The result is a longer lifetime, more cost-effective adsorbent that requires less maintenance and fewer regeneration cycles. During this Phase I, Tetramer will investigate the fabrication of this novel adsorbent material using commercially available components to better understand the process parameters and how they affect the properties of the final product. Filter materials produced with these different methods will then be characterized for heavy metal ion capture in aqueous environments, water stability, and recyclability as a proof-of-principle analogue for future designs. Successful completion of the Phase I program will lead to scale up and commercialization of these novel materials for applications such as water polishing for industrial or municipal operations and or recycling of precious metal wastes for extremely rare precious metals like rhodium or platinum.
