GlycoSurf Receives Innovation Award for Sustainability!
July 19, 2022
Glycosurf received the 2022 Utah Innovation Award for Sustainability for its work in the recovery of rare earth elements and other critical metals from aqueous mining waste streams using green glycolipid surfactants.
GlycoSurf is a start-up chemical company founded in 2013 based on filed US and PCT technology from the University of Arizona with the goal of creating green glycolipid surfactants. GlycoSurf was founded by UA SRC Director, Dr. Raina Maier, in collaboration with UArizona researchers Dr. Cliff Coss and Dr. Jeanne Pemberton, with technology development funding from Tech Launch Arizona at the University of Arizona.
GlycoSurf focuses on the use of green sugar-based surfactants for the recovery of rare earth elements from mining wastewater. Rare earth minerals are critical materials used in numerous applications for the green economy.
Presently, China controls most of the supply chain for rare earth metals globally. Very little domestic production of rare earths happens in the U.S., and the domestic operations for rare earth recovery rely on traditional mining of ore bodies. GlycoSurf is working on using its green sugar-based surfactants to recover rare earths from mining wastes to shift the paradigm away from mining to recovery. This innovation provides a recovery process to extract rare earths for domestic use by creating an additional supplier of these critical minerals.