By Faculty Name

Alex A. DiIorio

Affiliated Assistant Professor
Director, Bioprocess Center

Department: Biology & Biotechnology
Professional Page
Office: Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, 3014
Phone: +1-508-831-5602
Fax: +1-508-831-5936
adiiorio@wpi.edu

Educational Background

Research & Teaching Interests

Bioremediation of Heavy Metals

Research

Large volumes of metal-contaminated wastewaters are generated annually by many types of agricultural, industrial and sewage treatment processes. These metals tend to persist and even concentrate once released to the environment. The only acceptable method of handling metal-contaminated wastes is to reduce the overall discharge using technologies that are easy to implement and also relatively inexpensive.

Our research focuses on concentrating and recovering heavy metals from wastewater streams, particularly dilute streams since these are the most difficult to handle through conventional technologies. We have developed a metal recovery system capable of concentrating divalent cations present in wastewaters in concentrations as low as 2 ppm up to the g/l range where more conventional recovery processes can be used. These recovery operations can even be profitable for the special cases of valuable metals in solution.

We are currently developing a process designed to concentrate and recover negatively charged metals in solution which are not only potentially valuable (in the case of platinates) but also extremely toxic (in the case of chromates). This research seeks to use biologically derived products to economically recover and concentrate these metals for eventual reuse.

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