Associate Professor of Engineering Dr. Aaron Marshall and Chemical and Process Engineering Master’s understudy Jonathan Ring have built up an award-winning, just about a zero-waste global solution for treating waste acid from galvanizing, the way toward applying defensive zinc covering to steel or iron.
This procedure empowers 100 kilograms of zinc and 150 kilograms of iron for every ton of waste acid to be expelled and reused, rather than the present procedure that landfills this waste.
Dr. Marshall said, “We believe that our process could be expanded to include acid recovery, which would further reduce the operating costs of the overall galvanizing process and almost completely eliminate waste disposal.”
The process will have the ability to recover $350,000 of discarded zinc from Aotearoa New Zealand’s galvanizing industry annually and could also lower disposal costs. Galvanized steel is used widely in the construction of roads, railways, other infrastructure, appliances, and buildings.
Dr. Marshall said, “Globally, the market for the technology is huge, with estimates suggesting that the Chinese market alone is worth more than $120 million.”
Scientists have recently won funding in the University’s annual Innovation Jumpstart contest with $20,000 prize.