Fiscal Year:
2001
Title:
ENHANCED DENTAL AMALGAM TRAP
Agency:
HHS
Contract:
N/A
Award Amount:
$99,986.00
Abstract:
DESCRIPTION: Surveys conducted by municipal wastewater treatment plants across
the country have concluded that anywhere from 10 percent to over 70 percent of
the mercury reaching the plants comes from Dental offices. These findings,
combined with increasingly stringent regulations on mercury discharges, have
placed pressure on the Dental profession to reduce their discharges of
mercury-bearing amalgam. In Europe, similar concerns have led to the
development and marketing of devices to capture Dental amalgam.
The overall objective of this multiphase SBIR project is to enhance the
performance of sedimentation-type Dental amalgam separators by controlling the
water chemistry within the separator. Dental wastewater contains mercury in
three general forms: large particles of amalgam, fine particles of amalgam, and
dissolved mercury metal or ions. Simple sedimentation traps can be effective at
capturing the large particles and many of the fine particles. This often
accounts for over 95 percent of the total mercury burden. However, the
dissolved fraction can still exceed desirable discharge limits. At present,
expensive and maintenance-intensive adsorbents are needed to achieve discharge
concentrations in the low-ppb range. During Phase 1, the plan is to demonstrate
the feasibility of controlling the water chemistry within a simple
sedimentation device to minimize the amount of dissolved mercury. Phase 1
success would lead to optimization and field demonstrations in Phase 2.
PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE
Principal Investigator:
Craig S. Turchi
Small Business Information at Submission:
ADA TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
8100 SHAFFER PKY, STE 130 LITTLETON, CO 80127
EIN/Tax ID:
840984053
DUNS:
N/A
Number of Employees:
N/A
Woman-Owned:
No
Minority-Owned:
No
HUBZone-Owned:
No