Piet N.L. Lens – författare

This book covers the principles, underlying mechanisms, thermodynamic functions, kinetics and modeling aspects of sustainable technologies, particularly from the standpoint of applying physical, chemical and biological processes for the treatment of wastewater polluted with heavy metals. Particular emphasis has been given to technologies that are based on adsorption, electro-coagulation, bio-precipitation, bio-solubilization, phytoremediation and microbial electrolysis.

Metal contamination in the environment is one of the persisting global issues. The adverse health effects of heavy metals on human beings and its impact on the environment has been well-documented. Several physico-chemical and biological technologies have been successfully implemented to prevent and control the discharge of industrial heavy metal emissions. On the contrary, metal resource depletion has also accelerated dramatically during the 20th century due to rapid advances in industrial engineering and medical sciences, which requires large amount of raw materials.

To meet the global metal demand, in recent years, novel research lines have started to focus on the recovery of metals from metal contaminated waste streams. In order to conflate both metal removal and recovery, new technologies have been successfully tested, both at the lab and pilot-scale. The target audience of this book primarily comprises of research experts, practicing engineers in the field of environmental/chemical technology and graduate students.

This book presents an assortment of case-studies pertaining to the use of sustainable technologies for heavy metal removal and recovery from mining and metallurgical wastes, construction and demolition wastes, spent catalysts and electronic wastes. 

Wastewaters from diverse industrial and mining activities have caused pollution problems, but these sectors also serve as a hotspot for metal recovery. Several metal removal technologies based on physical, chemical and biological processes have been successfully implemented in full-scale operation, while metal recovery, which is beneficial for economic and environmental reasons, is still limited due to challenges arising from downstream processing. For instance, microbial recovery (bioleaching) of metals from their ores is an established technology with a number of full-scale applications. Bioleaching of electronic wastes to recover metals is also a highly promising technology with low environmental impact and high cost-effectiveness; yet, this technology is still at its infancy. 

As the individual chapters of this book focuses on the applications and limitations of different technologies, this book will serve as an excellent resource for chemical engineers, environmental engineers, mining engineers, biotechnologists, graduate students and researchers in these areas.