Managing Tight-binding Receptors for New Separations Technologies

technologies by gaining control over the properties that militate against such applications. The main advantage of these ligands is in the feats they can accomplish not accessible to ordinary ligands, such as binding in extremely dilute solutions and extracting metal ions from mineralized deposits. Their main limitation is that, as the affinity increases, the rates of binding and dissociation decrease very greatly. Thus the best tight-binding ligands react too slowly to be useful in most known separations and remediation technologies. The subject program aims at solving this basic problem through three specific goals: (1) Make tight-binding ligands that bind fast using the new concept of ''switch-binding'' instead of equilibration. (2) Make tight-binding ligands that dissociate fast using the new concept of ''switch-release''. (3) Develop a ''soil poultice'' as a slow technology for remediation of contaminated soils