Nano separations for pollution, resources
Nanotech separation methods could not only clean up the water from acid-mine drainage, but the metals recovered could become resources that don't have to be mined. (This photo is used courtesy Prof. Glenn Miller of the University of Nevada, Reno.)
In pollution control, we take out what we don’t want. In resource extraction, we take out what we do want. Both processes may benefit from a new nanotech technique.
A 21st century technology – nanotechnology – works at the scale of atoms and molecules.
Its many applications include the possibility of separating things in a way that’s extremely energy efficient. What sorts of things need separating?
Steve Gillet: The only difference between resource extraction and pollution control is that in pollution control what we’re taking we don’t want. And in resource extraction what we’re taking out we do want. But it’s fundamentally the same sort of problem.
That’s geologist Steve Gillett in Nevada. He and a colleague developed a set of conceptual approaches that use nanotechnology for efficient separations. That could mean separating out pollution, or separating out needed metals or other resources we want to use. The details are technical.
But Gillett told Earth & Sky that – with respect to nanotech separations – you can look at biological systems – for example, how your own kidneys remove toxins from your body, or how the leaves of plants remove CO2 from the air in order to grow. These natural separations involve the movement of atoms and molecules, one by one. Likewise, so does nanotechnology.
Gillett said his technique doesn’t mimic nature exactly. But, he said, you don’t have to do exactly what natural systems do to be inspired by them.
Thanks today to the National Science Foundation.
Gillett presented the technical details of this work in a white paper for the Foresight Nanotech Institute. The paper is called Nanotechnology for Clean Energy and Resources
Earth & Sky’s nanotechnology roundup
Our thanks to:
Stephen Gillett
