Material designed to capture mercury and other toxic substances from industrial wastewater streams is now available, writes Canadian Environmental Protection. Battelle has licensed the SAMMS technology to Steward Environmental Solutions of Chattanooga, TN.

SAMMS, or Self-Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports, is a technology that can be tailored to selectively remove metal contaminants without creating hazardous by-products. Steward intends to initially market use of the SAMMS for treating stack emissions from coal-fired power plants, process industry and municipal facilities. In lab tests, 99.9 percent of mercury in simulated wastewater was successfully removed.

Steward spokesman Robert E. Jones believes the economic and effective capture of mercury in aqueous and organic solutions also holds great promise for treating mercury-laden effluents. “We intend to develop alternatives to traditional technologies that result in mercury going into flyash by-products such as concrete or gypsum. SAMMS capabilities should be of great benefit to many process industries such as pulp and paper, the chemical industry, mining, and municipal waste operations,” Jones explained.

Steward Environmental Solutions began producing SAMMS to an industrial scale last March and now has commercial quantities of the material available.