Plants can shed light on how best to clean wastewater

Industrial and urban wastewater is often a jumbled mixture of contaminated liquid, minerals, metals and nutrients — all valuable resources.

Much of Canada’s wastewater is urban effluent that has been treated and discharged into sewer systems. Industrial wastewater must be managed under federal regulations.

But if the minerals, metals and nutrient resources in wastewater could be extracted in a pure form, they would be invaluable for use in other industries such as agriculture, aquaculture, battery recycling and desalination.

Scientists at the Australian National University drew inspiration from how plants use their specialized molecular separation mechanisms to recognize and separate these resources for their own use. What if those biological mechanisms were adapted to use in new wastewater recycling technologies?