 (1).png)
JUNE 20 - 23, 2023
Sustainability, the Great Lakes, and Chemistry for the Future
CERM Keynote Presentation
Friday, June 23, 2023
Plaza Ballroom, 11:00 AM
Timothy Dittrich
Dr. Timothy Dittrich is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI and co-director of the Rare-earths from U.S. Extractions (REUSE) Center. His research interests are in the areas of applied surface chemistry, contaminant geochemistry, resource recovery from waste products, nuclear waste disposal risk assessment, and hazardous waste treatment technology. Dr. Dittrich was a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory with the Actinide Chemistry and Repository Science Program (ACRSP) before joining the Wayne State University faculty. Dr. Dittrich received his B.S. in biological systems engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.S. in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University, and Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder and was also a postdoctoral scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM.
Actinides and Lanthanides in the Environment: A Blessing and a Curse
There has been a growing global dependence on the elements in the lanthanide and actinide series for many important uses over the last 75 years. This talk will cover the environmental benefits and challenges of these elements including extraction and recovery, applications, and wastes produced during processing and at end-of-life disposal. Although lanthanides are used in many clean energy technologies such as powerful magnets for wind turbines and electric car motors, their sourcing and processing is energy intensive and uses large amounts of fossil fuel to produce. Similarly, uranium is used to produce low carbon electricity; however, disposal of spent nuclear fuel remains a global challenge. Separating lanthanides and actinides is particularly challenging and has also been the subject of extensive research. The talk will conclude with an overview of nuclear waste disposal concepts and the potential benefits and challenges of sourcing actinides and lanthanides from unconventional materials such as coal combustion products (fly ash), phosphate rock, and electronic waste.
