Daqian Jiang, assistant professor in the Environmental Engineering Department at Montana Technological University, along with researchers from Yale University and Northwestern University, are studying the amount of non-hazardous industrial waste and their main chemical compositions generated in the United States. Each year the industrial sector creates hundreds of millions of tons of non-hazardous waste. These secondary materials are typically sent for disposal, but some have the potential to be beneficially used instead. The researchers work estimates that there are potentially 100 million tons of reusable minerals and 200 billion kWh extractable electricity in the non-hazardous industrial waste every year, and the potential will likely increase by 50% between now and 2050.
Learn more about the team’s published article in Science Direct at www.sciencedirect.com.