Hi, my name is Laura Mast, and I’m a graduate student here at Georgia Tech.
Rare earth elements are critical for all of
the cool – and green – technologies we
use today . . . smartphones, LEDs, wind turbines, electric car batteries, even cancer treatments..
However, we are facing a global shortage of these rare earth elements.
I think coal fly ash is the answer.
We produce [more than] 60 million tons of ash every year, and most of it ends up in landfills.
Turns out, this coal fly ash sometimes contains high concentrations of these rare earth elements.
I’m developing new materials to extract
these elements.
This way, tech can keep moving forward, we have stable supply,
and we’re putting less into landfills.
