Ion-Selective Adsorbent and Membrane Materials

Novel solute-selective materials are one of the keys to enable our re-imagination of “wastewater”. The Tarpeh lab develops selective adsorbents, selective adsorbent regeneration processes, and selective membranes for energy-efficient resource recovery from wastewater. Our hybrid cation exchanger utilizes metal-ligand exchange to recover ammonia from urine with unprecedented selectivity compared to other common cations. Because regeneration is a major obstacle to implementing ion exchange for resource recovery, we have characterized electro-assisted regeneration to achieve ammonia and phosphate recovery with reduced chemical and energy inputs compared to conventional approaches. We are also developing novel ligand-functionalized membranes and adsorbents that specifically separate lithium, nickel, and cobalt to improve the circularity of the battery industry.