Project Grant R41ES020118

This $255,999 National Science Foundation Project Grant under the Engineering (47.041) program will support Stochastic Research Technologies LLC in developing novel adsorbents for removing naturally occurring radionuclide materials (NORM) from fracking-produced water. The company will utilize computational modeling methods and computer-aided molecular design to generate improved clay-based adsorbents for selectively removing 99% or more of NORM contamination from concentrated produced and...

This $275,999 National Science Foundation Project Grant supports the development of an environmentally friendly rare earth element extraction process from recycled fluorescent light bulb powder. The awardee, IM Technologies LLC, will engineer a prototype reactor system that uses precision ultra-high temperature heating to evaporate and subsequently condense targeted rare earth constituents from light bulb waste. Research tasks include optimizing thermal energy applications to efficiently extract...

The Department of Energy's Office of Science awarded a $256,494 Project Grant to Semplastics EHC LLC, a for-profit limited liability company, to develop high-value products from produced water mineralized via reaction with anthropogenic CO2. This award is funded through the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA 81.049), which supports scientific discoveries and tools that advance U.S. energy, economic, and national security. Semplastics previously received over $8 million in prime...

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) awarded a $500,000 Project Grant to The Johns Hopkins University to synthesize a new class of materials called "high-entropy glass-ceramics" with higher nuclear waste loading capacity than industry-standard glasses for long-term geological disposal. The objective is to leverage entropy-stabilization to enhance the radionuclide solubility, chemical durability, and mechanical properties of these...

The Department of Energy Office of Science awarded Media and Process Technology Inc. a $400,000 project grant under the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA 81.049) to support research on Advanced Inorganic Membranes for Fuel Separation and Recycle in the Fusion Fuel Cycle. This project aims to develop advanced inorganic membrane technologies for separating and recycling tritium in the fusion fuel cycle, with work taking place in Blawnox, PA from June 2022 through March 2023. The...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $579,227 to The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York to develop an integrated biochemical and physicochemical process to recover critical metals from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. The project aims to: 1) characterize critical metal content in existing landfill leachates, 2) examine the use of in-situ biofilms for bioleaching, 3) elucidate the complex chemistry of...

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) awarded a $138,738 Project Grant under the NIEHS Superfund Hazardous Substances Basic Research and Education program (CFDA 93.143) to Chemfinity Technologies, Inc., a minority-owned small disadvantaged business located in Brooklyn, New York. The goal of this 1-year project is to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of Chemfinity's patented ion-capture electrodialysis (IC-ED) technology for remediation of acid mine drainage...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) Project Grant award of $359,636 to the University of Washington is focused on developing and evaluating novel ferrate-coated sand media for simultaneous oxidation of organic contaminants and adsorption of trace metals in water treatment applications. The key objectives are to: 1) synthesize and characterize the covalent ferrate-sand composite media; 2) investigate the media...

This $499,988 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) seeks to develop and validate an integrated sorption-photocatalytic process for the ex-situ treatment and remediation of groundwater contaminated by mixtures of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and chlorinated solvents like trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). The principal investigator and research team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale will...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $275,000 Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program to TPL LLC, a small disadvantaged business, to develop and test a novel reactor for fast iron carbonylation. This process aims to extract and purify iron, nickel, and other critical metals from mixed-material industrial wastes and ores more efficiently than current methods. The project will demonstrate the ability of the fast carbonylation reactor to...