Date
Monday 15 December 2025
Time
12:00 PM - 1:15 PMImportant information
A livestream of the lecture will also be delivered via Zoom. Instructions on how to join the Zoom link will be delivered via email after you register.
Role of Membranes in Critical Metal Recovery by Professor Menachem Elimelech
Rapid global population growth, intensifying industrial activity, and the transition to renewable energy technologies are creating an unprecedented demand for critical metals and minerals. Ensuring the long-term availability of these elements requires a shift to circular systems that prioritize recovery and reduced dependence on extraction-based supply chains. This reality calls for advanced separation technologies capable of extracting critical metals from unconventional sources such as industrial wastewater, battery manufacturing effluents, and hypersaline brines. Membrane technologies are now emerging as a potential route for selective metal recovery. Recent advances in molecular-scale confinement, coordination chemistry, and bioinspired transport mechanisms may enable membranes to discriminate between nearly identical ions based on size, charge, and binding energetics. This talk will highlight membrane strategies for selective recovery of critical metals, drawing on recent research demonstrating coordination-driven separation and nanoconfined transport, including mechanisms inspired by biological ion channels, advances in polymeric membrane design, and the use of solid-state electrolyte materials for lithium extraction. Techno-economic considerations will also be discussed, emphasizing the viability of targeting industrial wastewaters and highly saline brines over natural water sources such as seawater.
Join us in person or online on Monday 15 December, 12pm - 1:15pm AEDT.
Speaker
Nancy and Clint Carlson Professor at Rice University
Prof. Menachem Elimelech is the Nancy and Clint Carlson Professor at Rice University. His research focuses on membrane-based processes for energy-efficient desalination and wastewater reuse, advanced materials for next-generation separation and water decontamination technologies, and environmental applications of nanomaterials. He has received numerous awards for his research and mentoring contributions, including the 2005 Clarke Prize for excellence in water research; election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2006; the Eni Prize for ‘Protection of the Environment’ in 2015; and election to the Chinese Academy of Engineering (2017), the Australian Academy of Technology Sciences & Engineering (2021), and the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2022). He also received the Yale University Graduate Mentoring Award in 2004 and the Postdoctoral Mentoring Prize in 2012.
