Recovering Waste Products from Contaminated Water

A newly developed technology makes it possible to both clean up contaminated water and reclaim useful elements from the waste. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Karen Sorber is cofounder of Micronic technologies. They’ve invented an apparatus which vaporizes and purifies polluted water removing waste products by creating a tornado-like vortex.

Sorber: So not only can you reuse the water that’s clean now after using our technology, there is a byproduct, a waste stream, that you can actually do resource recovery.
So for example, I am in the southern Appalachian Mountains, and we’re near the coal mines. And over time, the land oozes up acidic drainage from those mines. And it can be very caustic, with heavy metals in particular. There’s this acid mine drainage that is all over the coalfields. And that, believe it or not, includes rare earth elements. Those are the materials needed to make silicon chips that we’re so dependent on other countries for. So in our technology, if we put it into an acid mine drainage pond or a stream, we could concentrate and cultivate those rare earth elements, which could be a excellent source of those materials.
As we invest in infrastructure, this technology will enable us to attack really contaminated water in a way we’ve never done before, cheaper and better than what’s out there now.

Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by the Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology and the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

Is it possible to both clean up contaminated water and reclaim useful elements from the waste?

Air Date:01/18/2022

Scientist:

Transcript:

Recovering Waste Products from Contaminated Water A newly developed technology makes it possible to both clean up contaminated water and reclaim useful elements from the waste. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Karen Sorber is cofounder of Micronic technologies. They've invented an apparatus which vaporizes and purifies polluted water removing waste products by creating a tornado-like vortex. Sorber: So not only can you reuse the water that's clean now after using our technology, there is a byproduct, a waste stream, that you can actually do resource recovery. So for example, I am in the southern Appalachian Mountains, and we’re near the coal mines. And over time, the land oozes up acidic drainage from those mines. And it can be very caustic, with heavy metals in particular. There's this acid mine drainage that is all over the coalfields. And that, believe it or not, includes rare earth elements. Those are the materials needed to make silicon chips that we’re so dependent on other countries for. So in our technology, if we put it into an acid mine drainage pond or a stream, we could concentrate and cultivate those rare earth elements, which could be a excellent source of those materials. As we invest in infrastructure, this technology will enable us to attack really contaminated water in a way we've never done before, cheaper and better than what's out there now. Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by the Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology and the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.