Research into green technologies has received funding as part of the Australia Research Council (ARC) Linkage Projects, with two projects featuring Associate Professor Justin Chalker and Professor Louisa Esdaile from the College of Science and Engineering, along with Mr Kevin Fell from commercial collaborator Clean Earth Technologies, being awarded grants in the third round of the program.

Examining new technologies for electronic waste recycling has received $659,669, to provide commercially viable methods for recycling eletronic waste (e-waste). The project aims to generate new knowledge in the separation and recovery of gold, silver and palladium, and develop new capabilities for Australia’s e-waste recycling industry, including the potential to convert e-waste plastic into construction material.

The Chalker Lab and partners were also awarded $558,984 for a second project entitled “Polymer technologies for oil spill remeditation and slow-release fertilisers,” with an aim to evaluate a patented sulfur polymer in commercial oil spill remediation and slow-release fertilisers.

Key objectives of this project will include determining how the polymer degrades, assessing the effectiveness of the polymer in oil spill sorption and the polymer as a matrix for slow-release fertilisers. The team hopes to develop new methods for deploying the polymer in oil spill cleanup, and use the polymer in new fertilisers that prevent nutrient waste and runoff.