Research
Electrokinetic Methods
Electrokinetic Methods for Soil Remediation, Mining and Fuel Treatment.
- Abiotic removal of metal ions from soils and ores. Improvements on the Pool process for electrokinetic treatment of soils will result from combination with additive agents. Design of these agents and modification of recovery systems will be required to provide an economic improvement.
- Electrokinetic methods can be used to introduce nutrients into micro-organisms in soil to accelerate bioremediation of contaminated soils. Nutrients such as phosphate and nitrate can be introduced to accelerate biological function. Since micro-organisms themselves have charge they can be moved through the soil under the influence of the electric field and this represents a plausible method of introduction of modified organisms into native populations. This work will be conducted in collaboration with the LBNL/UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Biotechnology. It also represents an important opportunity to collaborate with Geokinetics International, holders of the patent on the Pool process. Geokinetics has its headquarters in the City of Berkeley.
The research plan emphasizes delivery of energy and materials to reactor sites for large-scale processing and energy storage and conversion due to the nature of the customer which is mainly U.S. DOE at LBNL. Most of the principles used are equally valid in smaller scale devices such as biosensors, drug delivery schemes and pharmaceutical manufacture. Development of new programs more applicable to the needs of agencies such as EPRI , GRI, NIH or ONR will be developed through discussions with appropriate customer representatives. The needs of industrial concerns is actively sought.