Research teams at Northwestern University have created a new filtering technique for pulling harmful contaminants out of wastewater — while also being able to harvest some of those recovered materials for other uses.
Pollutants such as phosphate, copper, and zinc have been leaching into waterways from agricultural and industrial runoff, and while solutions exist, they're often expensive, single-use tools, as a report shared by Tech Xplore detailed.
This led researchers at the university's McCormick School of Engineering to develop a specialized sponge that can pull metals and phosphate out of the water, while also being able to selectively release them using different pH methods.
Their "PEARL" sponge-based platform received $250,000 in funding from the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy in 2024. This led to a partnership with stormwater treatment equipment manufacturer StormTrap LLC for real-world testing on Chicago's waterways.
Clean water is important for the health and well-being of people around the globe. Pollutants from industrial processes, along with the encroachment of salty seawater into freshwater supplies due to a changing climate, make proper treatment methods invaluable.
The team's first iteration of the sponge could filter lead from water, as well as microplastics and oil from lakes and oceans. Now, they're tailoring their approach to extract specific Chicago-area pollutants and selectively release them for reuse.
The PEARL technology involves a cellulose sponge coated with iron oxide nanoparticles that have an affinity for these pollutants, and the porous material provides plenty of surface area for collection.
"The technology can be used as a universal sorbent or 'catch-all,' or it can be tailored to certain groups of contaminants like metals, plastics, or nutrients," principal investigator and Northwestern professor Vinayak Dravid said in the report.
Then, using a variety of different pH levels targeting specific contaminants, they can extract them for reuse. This will help bolster a circular economy and reduce reliance on mining these resources.
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Never 👎 While excess levels of phosphates and metals are harmful to human health and the environment, they remain valuable, nonrenewable resources.
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"With the growth of the transition to renewable energy, there is going to be a shortage of metals needed to build the infrastructure. If we can recover metal and phosphorus from something that would otherwise be considered waste, we have a new source of valuable resources," Dravid said in a Trienens Institute report.
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