Mining Wastewater Treatment With Novel Ceramic Ion Exchange Resins

This student team set out to investigate the use of ceramic ion exchange resins for use in mining wastewater treatment. Mining and the resulting materials play a critical role in our everyday lives; but mining generates enormous volumes of water waste. All too often, this waste is stored or abandoned instead of treated, leaving open the opportunity to contaminate valuable water streams in the future. This student team will work to investigate how ceramic ion exchange resins could add value to mining wastewater treatment by extracting heavy metals (specific elements TBD). Ceramic materials offer certain advantages over traditional polymeric resins, such as stability in low pH and stiffer networks less likely to compress under pressure. Bench-top experiments in mining-relevant conditions will guide product development to tackle this environmental problem. The outcomes this student team worked towards included lab-scale data on ion exchange capacity and regeneration efficiency under varying conditions that compares Membrion's resin to commercial resins.

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