International Innovation Project on the Computer-aided High Throughput Development and Upscaling of Tailored Zeolites as Waste Water Filters in Ghana

非法采金作业在加纳是一个日益严重的问题，原因是采用冲积采矿技术和大量使用有毒化学品，导致氰化物、汞、其他重金属和有机污染物严重污染为当地居民服务的水源。矿区和其他当地社区因此无法获得清洁用水，导致严重的健康问题。除了对废水进行任何化学处理外，还迫切需要开发物理吸收剂来去除污染物，然而，这种吸收剂必须既有效又具有成本效益。微孔沸石材料是非常有效的吸附剂和离子交换剂，可以调整为对感兴趣的吸附质的高度选择性，并伴随无毒离子释放到环境中。它们可以由现成的材料合成，结构紧凑，价格便宜，在全面操作中易于维护。这个跨学科项目将汇集来自学术界和工业界的地球化学家、物理学家、计算和材料科学家组成的经验丰富的团队，开发高效的合成沸石，由天然矿物制成，用于经济有效地处理金矿废水，然后将其排放到环境中。沸石将在实验室规模上进行表征和测试，然后将合成和过滤过程扩大到可操作的处理厂，为当地大都市人口服务。

Illegal gold mining operations are a growing problem in Ghana, owing to the practice of alluvial mining techniques and the heavy use of toxic chemicals, which leads to significant pollution by cyanide, mercury, other heavy metals and organic contaminants, of the water sources that serve the local population. The mining and other local communities are thus deprived of access to clean water, leading to serious health problems. In addition to any chemical treatment of the effluent water, there is an urgent need to develop physical absorbents to remove the pollutants, which, however, need to be both efficient and cost-effective. Microporous zeolite materials are very effective absorbents and ion exchangers, which can be tuned to be highly selective towards adsorbate(s) of interest, with the accompanying release of non-toxic ions into the environment. They can be synthesised from readily available materials and are compact, cheap and simple to maintain in full-scale operations. This cross-disciplinary project will bring together an experienced team of geochemists, physicists, computational and materials scientists from academia and industry to develop efficient synthetic zeolites, made from naturally available minerals, for the cost-effective treatment of waste water from gold mines, before its discharge into the environment. The zeolites will be characterised and tested on a laboratory scale before up-scaling both synthesis and filtration process into an operational treatment plant to serve a local metropolitan population.