Sustainable Wastewater Treatment for Heavy Metals

I am extracting bacterial biopolymers, called exopolysaccharides (EPS), for use in a wastewater treatment technology for heavy metals. These EPS are immobilized into alginate beads and are then placed inside a column. This functions as a packed bed column to allow for continuous heavy metal adsorption. I will be investigating key parameters that influence the metal adsorption rate and the column service time. The beads will be allowed to be reused after a desorption process of the metals, making this technology inexpensive and more sustainable.