PURE Lab research published in Science Advances
After many years of research and conceptual development, the PURE Lab’s work on transforming arsenic pollution into valuable materials has been published in Science Advances.
The study demonstrates that arsenic, long recognized as a potent carcinogen and a persistent global contaminant, can be upcycled into chemically pure amorphous arsenic nanoparticles (As(0)), which is a Critical Raw Material (CRM) essential for digital infrastructure, high-speed electronics, and clean energy technologies.
This research combined field samples of treatment sludge collected from multiple continents with cutting-edge synchrotron-based characterization at MAX IV (Sweden) and DESY (Germany) to reveal the molecular mechanisms behind arsenic transformation.
The findings open the door to a potentially transformative approach for water treatment that converts hazardous waste streams into sources of critical raw materials, which unites environmental remediation with circular economy principles.
