Selective bio-adsorbent for recovering heavy metals from mine tailings

Mining has been a major, invaluable source of wealth and employment for Canada. However, mining activities involve the release of heavy metals into the environment through its process tailings. These metals are highly toxic to the environment, but they are also recoverable and have high market value for other applications. There are various treatments to address this, but biosorption is among the most appealing due to its economic feasibility and wide availability. Therefore, the overall objective of the research project is to identify the optimal biomass-based adsorbent that can be used for treating and recovering heavy metals from mine tailings. The adsorbent of interest needs to be abundantly available and easy to fabricate while having high binding capacity and selectivity. The interns contribute to the projects by developing and validating different analytical methods for determining heavy metal concentrations within the mine tailings or characterizing adsorbent thermal properties.

Faculty Supervisor:

Sudip Rakshit

Student:

Partner:

Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Mining; Biotechnology; Sustainability & the Environment

University:

Lakehead University

Program: