ThioTech - sulfur containing materials to capture hazardous waste and precious metals

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Environmental pollutants are one of the largest risks to human health, therefore, the release of contaminants must be controlled and prevented and, where release has already occurred, remediation methods should be used to isolate the harmful substance and make the area safe. Aimed at the highly toxic substances used and generated in industry, ThioTech, a new university spin out company, has developed a series of promising sulfur containing sorbents, which can be applied in the mining, oil & gas, waste service, and power industries. Because of the high sulfur content, the high specific surface area (over two thousand square metres of surface per gram of material), and special chemical bonds, ThioTech materials have a high affinity for heavy metals and precious metals, such as mercury and gold.First of all, mercury pollution is an urgent global health concern. 128 countries signed a joint agreement to reduce mercury emissions (Minamata Convention), causing tightening restrictions on industry, and a need for more effective materials to adsorb mercury. Secondly, the mining of precious metals such as gold, platinum, and palladium uses chemicals to dissolve the metals in ores and pump them back to the surface as an aqueous solution. The gold is then captured onto adsorbent materials like activated carbon (porous charcoal). Mercury and cyanide are the most common gold leaching reagents in the gold mining industry, therefore, a non-toxic and environmentally friendly gold leaching agent is needed. The problem is there is no viable sorbent material to retrieve gold from the safer alternative gold leaching agents. Therefore, benefiting from the special chemical structure, ThioTech materials are anticipated as a promising approach to solve these two challenges.Market research of the potential of ThioTech materials was investigated through the Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) programme, supported by Innovated UK, and showed high feasibility for establishment of a spin-out company. In the next stage, ThioTech will focus on materials scale-up development and primary commercialisation. The new company will be based in Liverpool, and collaborate with other British companies in technology development, material manufacturing, and validation study. ThioTech sorbent has potential as an import substitution in UK industry and to allow export to overseas markets, consequently, stimulating the economic growth of upstream and downstream industries. Therefore, from both economic and public health aspects, this support from Innovate UK represents the value for money for the taxpayer.