Extraction and Recovery of Mercury and Lead from Aqueous Waste Streams using Redox-Active Layered Materials

The goals of this program have been to develop a series of new compounds that act as redox recyclable heavy metal ion selective materials. This has been a preliminary exploration into the viability of creating materials that act as selective exchange media. We have historically been involved in the separation of ionic pollutants such as radionuclides or toxic heavy metal ions from water by designing extractants with high selectivities and large capacities. We have also recognized that there is a more urgent need to develop processes that allow the target pollutants to be recovered in a minimal volume of secondary waste and that allow the extractants to be reused or recycled. We have been studying redox active transition-metal-containing extractants that undergo reversible electron transfer activation and deactivation as the target ions are extracted and recovered or that undergo efficient, selective ion exchange