Project 1 - Environmental Project 1 - EP1 - Immobilization of U, As, and Co-occurring Metals in Mine Wastes

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PROJECT 1 – ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECT 1 – EP1 - PROJECT SUMMARY Environmental Project 1 will make use of ubiquitous resources both by geochemically customized immobilization strategies making use of existing minerals in mine wastes, as well as exploiting bioaccumulation patterns from local plant root systems. Biogeochemical and mass transfer interfacial processes will be investigated through bench scale experiments using field sediment samples, integrating aqueous chemistry, molecular environmental microbiology, mathematical models, advanced microscopy, and spectroscopy tools. We hypothesize that ubiquitous mineral phases and plants can be used to immobilize metal mixtures under surface oxidizing conditions. Environmental Project 1 will have an invaluable impact on the Pueblo and Navajo communities that live in the proximity of abandoned mine wastes sites. Through the integration of advanced techniques at the cutting- edge of environmental science and engineering, we will investigate reactions and mechanisms at the molecular level to understand macro-scale processes. We will engineer phytoremediation strategies using biogeochemistry tools and reactive transport modeling, together with Next Generation Sequencing analyses (metagenome for rhizosphere experiments). We will use a combination of in-vitro and greenhouse experiments to define specific phytoremediation approaches to decrease metal contamination in soils which will be tested in pilot studies. The participating Pueblo and Navajo communities and UNM METALS scientists will produce new knowledge that can be applied to thousands of other existing abandoned mine waste sites.