Research led by Arizona State University environmental engineer Paul Westerhoff to improve wastewater treatment resulted in a surprising discovery: Sewage sludge in the amounts produced in large metropolitan areas contains significant amounts of valuable metals – including gold and silver.

Westerhoff is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Download Full Image

He is the lead author of a study published in a recent edition of the research journal Environmental Science & Technology that revealed the finding, which set off a wave of headlines on popular news sites of major publications.

The study sparked speculation about whether urban areas might somehow find ways to harvest the metals from sludge, enabling them to recoup something of value from material that is costly to treat and dispose of.

In addition to Science magazine, the discovery made news on Smithsonian.com, in Discover magazine, the International Business Times, Gizmodo, Fast Times, CBC Radio (Canada), and Kitco News, which covers the metals investment industry.

There was also coverage from Fox News, Money magazine, Spektrum (Germany), a Luxembourg radio station, News.com.au (Australia), Le Monde (France) and the Macedonian Information Agency.

Additional reports were published by Business CheatSheet and the Huffington Post. Westerhoff was also interviewed on a popular talk show “Top of Mind” with Julie Rose on on BYU Radio at Brigham Young University (scroll down the page to the “Precious Metals” segment).

The research brought together experts at ASU from a range of fields. Contributions came from faculty in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the Polytechnic School in the Fulton Schools of Engineering,

In addition, faculty members in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Earth and Space Exploration in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences were involved, as well as those at the Center for Environmental Security in the Biodesign Institute.

Support came from the National Science Foundation through the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project based at ASU.

Article Source: Science magazine