Electrochemical Method of Selective Metal Removal from Aqueous Media

Numerous waste streams, typically the products of chemical processing, such as metal extraction or manufacturing process such as electronic component manufacturing or acid mine drainage, are produced by industries. Most of these waste streams contain dissolved metal ions that must be removed to preserve the environment. Often, such wastes are complex, toxic, and involve multiple metal ions. Current technologies for metal ion removal such as ion exchange and/or precipitation require several processing steps. These processing steps increase as the number of metal ions increase in the feed stream. Each of these processing steps requires equipment and consumes both energy and chemicals to produce a purified product. This invention describes a novel method of removing multiple toxic metals from aqueous media by selective pulse-plating with high surface area electrodes. This method allows the metals to be recovered individually as purified metals in an environmentally sound way.

Benefits
Metal recovery from waste streams in industrial processes is a critical and potentially costly step and is done throughout the world. As a result it has world wide applications in several industrial setups.
This invention can be applied in any process stream where metal recovery from dilute or concentrated solutions is necessary.

Stage of Development
This technology is part of an active and ongoing research program and is available for developmental research support/licensing under either exclusive or non-exclusive terms.

Additional Info
*Recovery of metals from dilute solutions by pulsed electrodeposition�, Free, Michael L., JOM, v 56, n 11, November, 2004, p 353
*http://www.cc.utah.edu/~mlf5/

Inventor(s): Michael Free

Type of Offer: Licensing



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