Aqua-mining for a circular economy: Cleaning wastewater by recovering valuable metals (ICURe Cohort 38 Team 16)

工业和城市废水造成的淡水污染每年造成约200万人死亡。废水中含有的有害污染物通常是有价值的和战略上重要的金属（例如，金、铂、稀土金属），这些金属可能达到有毒浓度，而且往往难以清除，而且费用高昂。因此，它们通常不会被有效地回收，而是被排放和损失。将这些有害金属排放到水生生态系统的替代方案是使用我们的多项专利技术Selectal -一种能够从极难处理的工艺或废水中选择性地回收大量金属的平台技术。Seloxium以使用竞争技术无法达到的成本，纯度，规模和速度实现了这一目标。Seloxium帮助采矿、精炼和工业公司实现其环境、社会和治理（ESG）目标，方法是（1）将废水转化为高利润和可持续的有价值金属来源，或（2）提高纯度，从而提高高浓度金属加工或采矿流的价值。使用Selectal从废水中开采有价值的金属不仅可以对抗淡水污染，还可以将污水处理厂转变为“资源工厂”。回收的金属可以直接回收并在工业中重复使用，这不仅消除了供应问题，而且还降低了采矿/精炼行业在其原始生产中使用的环境足迹。

Freshwater pollution by industrial and municipal wastewater causes approximately 2 million deaths annually. Among the harmful contaminants contained in wastewaters are often valuable and strategically important metals (e.g., gold, platinum, rare-earth metals), which can reach toxic concentrations and are often difficult and costly to remove. Hence, they are generally not effectively recovered but instead discharged and lost.An alternative to discharging these harmful metals into aquatic ecosystems, is using our multi-patented technology Selectal - a platform technology capable of selectively recovering an extensive array of metals from extremely difficult to treat process or waste streams. Seloxium achieves this at a cost, purity, scale, and speed not attainable using competing technologies. Seloxium helps mining, refining and industrial companies to achieve their environmental and social and governance (ESG) goals by (1) turning their wastewater into a highly profitable and sustainable source of valuable metals or by (2) improving the purity and hence, value of highly concentrated metal processing or mining streams. Mining valuable metals from wastewater using Selectal not only combats freshwater pollution but also turns effluent treatment plants into 'resource factories'. The recovered metals can be directly recycled and reused in industry, which not only alleviates supply concerns but also lowers the environmental footprint of the mining/refining industries used in their original production.