Illinois Tech's Professor Sohail Murad has secured $450,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for a project aimed at evaluating a novel method to extract valuable metals such as lithium, vanadium, manganese, and arsenic from wastewater using computational methods. The project will span three years.
Murad emphasizes the importance of domestic production of these metals due to their critical role in manufacturing products like batteries and semiconductors, which are vital to the U.S. economy and national security. "Most of the critical metals that are being used in U.S. manufacturing of products such as batteries and semiconductors are being imported from China and Russia," he states.
The presence of these metals in certain wastewater streams is already known, including those originating from oil industry processes in regions like the Permian Basin in the southwestern United States. Murad notes, "If we remove all the lithium just from the Permian Basin waste stream, that would be enough to satisfy the industrial needs of the U.S. many times over."
Additionally, manganese and lithium found in seawater suggest that wastewater from desalination plants could serve as another source. This process of aqua mining is expected to be more environmentally friendly compared to traditional mining methods.
However, extracting these metals efficiently remains challenging due to their low concentration in available water sources. Some attempts have been made to increase concentration through boiling but at high costs and energy consumption. Murad's approach proposes using reverse osmosis—a method already employed in water desalination—as a potentially more effective solution.
"People have talked about getting these critical metals from waste streams, but they have never suggested the combination of methods that we are using," Murad explains.
As part of his research, Murad will conduct molecular simulations to test this concept further. He plans to use a zeolite membrane known for its affordability and stability across various pH levels and temperatures—attributes demonstrated by his previous work on water desalination selectivity.
Despite low flux rates hindering commercial desalination applications with zeolites thus far—the high value associated with extracted metals provides greater leeway for increased extraction costs compared with water production where national security interests add broader considerations beyond mere expense alone.
"We think that we'll be able to figure out whether our method is feasible or not," says Murad regarding future steps involving potential experimental partners toward establishing demonstration units.
A disclaimer clarifies: “Research reported in this publication was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Award Number DE-SC0025289. This content is solely the responsibility of authors and does not necessarily represent official views." The award number DE-SC0025289 pertains specifically within context presented hereunder reference titled 'Exploring Feasibility Aqua-Mining Recovery Critical Metals Using Computational Molecular Modeling.'