SBIR Phase I: Extraction of iron material from red mud using a novel combination of ionic liquids, solvents and electrochemistry

SBIR 第一阶段：使用离子液体、溶剂和电化学的新型组合从赤泥中提取铁材料

• 批准号: 2014663
• 负责人: Thomas Villalon
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: MVM INDUSTRIAL, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-15 至 2021-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2014663&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Extraction; iron; material

The broader impacts/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to improve resource efficiency and sustainability to the mining industry. "Red mud" is a hazardous waste product of a key step in aluminum production. For every ton of aluminum produced, 2.5 tons of red mud are pumped into a tailings pond. 120 million tons of red mud are produced annually, with over 30 billion stored in tailings ponds around the world. This project advances a technology to reduce the volume of waste with innovative metals extraction, creating a viable source of metals from waste. This process could also create a supply of critical metals for electric vehicles, wind energy, and other applications. This SBIR Phase I project seeks to develop an end-to-end process for red mud processing. It will utilize ionic liquids as highly selective solvents enabling precise separation of a variety of different metal compounds from a mixed and variable inorganic feedstock. Compared to current industrial practices that typically operate above 1000 degrees C, this approach allows a much lower temperature operation, drastically reducing the energy consumption and thus the cost of metal material processing. Additionally, the unique properties of ionic liquids at low temperatures make them ideal for use as electrolytes in electrochemical processes producing pure metal materials. The proposed project will conduct a feasibility study at laboratory scale.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该小型企业创新研究 (SBIR) 第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是提高采矿业的资源效率和可持续性。 “赤泥”是铝生产关键步骤的危险废物。每生产一吨铝，就有2.5吨赤泥被泵入尾矿池。全球每年产生1.2亿吨赤泥，其中超过300亿吨储存在尾矿库中。该项目推进了一项技术，通过创新的金属提取来减少废物量，从废物中创造出可行的金属来源。 这一过程还可以为电动汽车、风能和其他应用提供关键金属。该 SBIR 第一阶段项目旨在开发赤泥处理的端到端工艺。它将利用离子液体作为高选择性溶剂，从而能够从混合和可变的无机原料中精确分离各种不同的金属化合物。 与当前通常在 1000 摄氏度以上运行的工业实践相比，这种方法可以在更低的温度下运行，从而大大降低能源消耗，从而降低金属材料加工的成本。此外，离子液体在低温下的独特性能使其非常适合在生产纯金属材料的电化学过程中用作电解质。拟议的项目将在实验室规模上进行可行性研究。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。