Researchers find new way of removing metal from water

This summer, you could often find Ben Hewson ’19 sharing his notes with Professor Charley Liberko in the chemistry lab during the Cornell Summer Research Institute (CSRI).
They’re hoping that something that started out as a simple idea could turn into something much more.
“There’s this idea that wood is composed of these two polymers, cellulose and lignin. Most of the time we are taking the wood and getting rid of the lignin and keeping the cellulose. The cellulose is what we use for the paper. ... Many times this huge amount of lignin, which is the second most abundant polymer on earth, just goes to waste. I had it in my mind, what can we do with lignin? What kind of things can we turn lignin into that might be useful for someone? As we thought about water and thought about getting rid of metal ions in water that might be contaminating things, I thought, well, lignin should be a perfect thing for that.”
That idea fell in line with Hewson’s plans for the future. He wants to be a doctor because he likes to help people, so now he’s exploring one aspect of that through the test tubes of this chemistry lab.
“I’m really excited about it, especially since it’s a new project and I kind of get to pioneer it my own way,” Hewson said. “It feels really cool to be able to just explore and figure things out on my own, with help from Dr. Liberko. I feel good about it, knowing that this could potentially be something that’s really big and great.”