nir-vana innovation network

The Catalan (Spanish) research centre is a non-profit global leader organization, focused on the newly-discovered physical and chemical properties that arise from the behaviour of matter at the nanoscale.

The recent surge in the demand for accessible water for industrial and drinking use, coupled with the alarming increase of toxic pollutants in the environment, have driven a search for efficient, economic and sustainable water purifying methods. Heavy metal ions are among the most widespread contaminants for both drinking waters and industrial wastewater and exposure to even traces of these metals can result in chronic health disorders. The most common water remediation strategies currently adopted include reverse osmosis, filtration and chemical precipitation, although most of these suffer from some drawbacks, such as limited regeneration, slow sorption kinetics, relatively low thermal or chemical stability, and limited selectivity.

The research centre has developed an innovative super porous adsorbent with enhanced removal capacity toward heavy metal water contaminants. This adsorbent is a novel composite material of metal-organic frameworks (MOF) and cerium oxide (CeO2) inorganic nanoparticles, featuring excellent porosity and chemical stability. The composite has been designed to combine the high surface areas and adsorption properties of both MOF and inorganic nanoparticles, thus it can simultaneously remove different heavy metals from water, such as Arsenic(III and V), Cadmium(II), Chromium(III and VI), Copper(II), Lead(II) and Mercury(II).

The super porous adsorbent material is fabricated by spray-drying in the form of spherical microbeads, which can be further structured into millimetric granules (Figure 1), making it suitable for water purification systems such as cartridges for point-of-use usage, or even in continuous flow fixed-bed adsorption columns for scale-up applications. Moreover, the adsorbent capacity can be regenerated by simple acidic treatment, allowing for recyclability of the material and process sustainability.

The research centre is interested in establishing license agreements or research cooperation agreements with industrial partners, to bring the technology onto the market or collaborate in the industrial prototyping and testing in relevant environment.

Advantages & innovations

The main advantages are: • Cost-efficient and scalable production, thanks to spray-dry process • Low-cost starting materials • Simultaneous removal of multiple heavy metals • Tunable beads shape and size up to millimetric granules • Ease of material regeneration • Chemical stability • Suitability to a wide range of filtration systems

Stage of development

Prototype available for demonstration

Partner sought

The research centre is looking for companies fabricating adsorbents and molecular sieves (such as active carbon, zeolites, etc.), manufacturing purification devices or systems for water purification or remediation interested in either: • Licensing the technology. or • Collaborating in the industrial prototyping and testing of the composite material in relevant environment under a research cooperation agreement.