Month: April 2021

NMSU Student Studies the Recovery of Rare Earth Elements and Potable Water from Produced Water

By Marcus Gay, NM WRRI Student Program Coordinator

New Mexico is facing water challenges due to increasing water demand and chronic drought. Water researchers and managers are constantly looking for new ideas about freshwater resources. Produced water— a fluid that is an incidental byproduct from drilling for or the production of oil and gas —is the largest waste stream generated during oil and gas production. A potential solution to address some of New Mexico’s water challenges is to develop low-cost, energy-efficient systems that generate clean water from produced water sources.

In some New Mexico produced water sources, rare earth elements such as lanthanum (La), neodymium (Nd), and europium (Eu) have been detected. If these rare earth elements could be recovered in an efficient way, there is a high potential for earnings that could subsidize the cost of generating clean potable water from produced water sources.

In response to these challenges, Lin Chen, a PhD candidate in New Mexico State University’s Department of Civil Engineering, has been working on a project that provides an environmentally friendly and economically attractive solution to water scarcity issues. Under the guidance of his faculty advisors, Dr. Frank Ramos and Dr. Pei Xu, the project aims to produce clean water while recovering rare earth elements in the process. NM WRRI has awarded Lin a Student Water Research Grant for a project entitled, Recovery of Rare Earth Elements and Potable Water from Produced Water, which will develop an energy-efficient and low-cost treatment system to produce clean water while optimizing the extraction of rare earth elements from produced water collected from the Permian Basin.

The first task of the project is clean water production which includes the development of bench-scale high-performance solar driven distillation system: a single-basin, single-slope solar still used to generate clean water with total dissolved solids concentration no greater than 500 mg/L. As the water evaporates in the solar still, rare earth elements will begin to concentrate, which will facilitate separation and extraction in the next step. The second task of the project is the multi-stage process to recover rare earth elements. This task includes building a bench-scale system and conducting laboratory experiments under controlled conditions for rare earth element separation and extraction.

The project aims to generate clean water from produced water that meets drinking water standards, and minimal recovery of 70 percent of rare earth elements La, Nd, and Eu using the multi-stage process for extraction and separation. According to Lin, the study provides a promising sustainable process for producing clean water, reducing produced water disposal, and recovering rare earth elements with significant economic and environmental benefits. As Lin explains, “potable water and resource recovery from produced water is vitally important to subsidizing the treatment cost of produced water and providing a method to reuse a large amount of produced water. This also mitigates the risk of discharging produced water and contaminating groundwater via deep-well injection.”

Lin presented this project at the 65^th Annual New Mexico Water Conference in October 2020. Originally from China, Lin earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Environmental Engineering working on the biological removal of nitrogen from surface water. Lin hopes to complete his PhD in Environmental Engineering this year, and plans to become a postdoctoral researcher after graduation.

NMSU Student Studies Lead in Corn Harvested from the Animas Watershed

By Marcus Gay, NM WRRI Student Program Coordinator

The Animas River has historically received contamination from natural acid rock drainage, and for the last 160 years, from legacy mines throughout the river’s watershed. In August of 2015, the Gold King Mine wastewater spill raised concerns about the safety of food grown using Animas River water. A research team has been measuring the concentrations of several metalloids in the soil, water, and plants in the watershed since 2017 and found that only two elements have ever measured above EPA or NMED recommended levels. An elevated level of arsenic (As) has been measured in soil, and an elevated level of lead (Pb) has been measured in corn kernels. Previous research has shown that arsenic is not extractable in water and thus not likely available for plant uptake, but ongoing monitoring of lead concentrations in plants of the Animas River Watershed has shown sporadic high levels of lead in corn kernels. These findings warrant further research because corn is a staple crop in the region, especially in the Navajo Nation. NM WRRI has awarded a Student Water Research Grant to New Mexico State University (NMSU) student Bianca Wright to help determine if the corn grown on fields irrigated by the Animas and San Juan Rivers is safe for consumption.

The project entitled, Evaluating Soil Lead Bioavailability in Agricultural Fields across Animas Watershed, aims to measure the amount of lead in corn plants harvested from agricultural fields irrigated from the Animas and San Juan Rivers. Under the guidance of Wright’s faculty sponsor Dr. April Ulery, whole corn plant samples were collected, including roots, leaf tissue, husk, and kernels, as well as the soil around the roots. Plant and soil material was separated and processed in the NMSU Soil Chemistry Research Lab and analyzed for lead. The results of the analyses will be compared with WHO/FAO lead safety standards of 0.05 mg/kg. Using a variety of chemicals, sequential extraction of the soil was conducted to determine the bioavailability of the lead.

According to Wright, the results of the study will improve the community’s understanding of toxic metals found in the region. The research team working on this project has participated in 16 teach-ins at various Navajo Nation Chapter houses and three radio interviews from 2017-2020. The team continues to work with local farmers in the Aztec and Farmington areas to answer questions and address concerns. As Wright explains, “The farmers and growers across the Animas and San Juan watershed want to know about the safety of their produce following the Gold King Mine Spill of 2015. Our research will look closely at some corn-growing areas to answer some of these questions.”

Wright presented her work on this project at the 65^th Annual New Mexico Water Conference. Originally from El Paso, Texas, Wright expects to graduate in December with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering. After graduation, Wright plans to work on landing her dream job at Los Alamos National Laboratory and continuing her education by earning a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering.

Meet the Researcher, Michaela Buenemann, Associate Professor, New Mexico State University

By Jeanette Torres, NM WRRI Program Coordinator

In this edition of Meet the Researcher, we had the pleasure of interviewing Michaela Buenemann, an associate professor for the Department of Geography and co-director of the Spatial Applications Research Center (SpARC) at New Mexico State University (NMSU). She has taught at NMSU since 2008, first as an assistant professor, and has been in her current position since 2014. She teaches five classes throughout the year in addition to overseeing several funded research projects. A few of the courses she instructs include Cartography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Advanced Remote Sensing, and Field Explorations in Geography. Buenemann also advises undergraduate and graduate students and plans to mentor three new students in the upcoming fall semester. She recently accepted an advisement role for Victoria Blumenberg, who was awarded a New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute (NM WRRI) Student Water Research Grant in 2019 for her project entitled, Stable Isotope Analysis to Determine the Usefulness of Surface Water as a Proxy for Precipitation in a Semi‐Arid, Mountainous Environment. According to Michaela, her ability to educate, advise, and mentor students are the most important aspects of her career alongside performing research, and providing service to her professional community.

Buenemann is currently working with her colleagues and students on two major projects funded by The Natural Resources Conservation Service. One has the end goal of automating the mapping of inactive acequias in addition to looking at relationships between acequia status, land cover change, and ecosystem service changes. She believes this project will lend itself to further collaboration with NM WRRI and possibly universities in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The other project will address mapping and monitoring of vegetation, hydrology, and human structures in mesquite-encroached rangelands. Michaela is also involved in a multi-team project funded by the National Institutes of Health entitled, Coordinating Research on Emerging Arboviral Threats Encompassing the Neotropics (CREATE-NEO). Buenemann states that her main role in this research is to map and model the risk of arbovirus spillover and spillback given the co-occurrence of susceptible hosts, competent mosquito vectors, and various human and environmental conditions.

Michaela earned a BA in Geography, with minors in Spanish Literature and Media Sciences from Paderborn University located in Paderborn, Germany (1999). Her PhD in Geography was completed at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma (2007). At the moment, Buenemann has two manuscripts in review, and coauthored four articles last year with her latest article being featured in Ecosphere (2021) entitled, Shifts in mosquito diversity and abundance along a gradient from oil palm plantations to conterminous forests in Borneo.

Michaela’s proficiency and knowledge of GIS and remote sensing has been a valuable asset to NM WRRI. She was the committee chair for NM WRRI research scientist associate Bob Sabie’s master thesis and is currently on his PhD committee. She works with Bob in collecting spectral data in the field with a spectroradiometer and a multispectral camera aboard an unoccupied aerial system. Buenemann also taught Marcus Gay, NM WRRI’s Senior Student Program Coordinator and recipient of NMSU’s ‘A’ Mountain Staff Award. Michaela has been involved in training many past NM WRRI GIS student employees who have all been able to find gainful employment in geography and water related positions. She believes her expertise in geographic information science and technology may be beneficial to some of the ongoing projects at NM WRRI, and looks forward to future opportunities to contribute to the Institute and form new collaborations.

Buenemann is currently chairing two master’s and two doctoral committees while serving as a member on 15 other committees in Biology, Water Science and Management, Geology, and other academic departments.  She has delivered and contributed to over 95 presentations throughout her career and has peer-reviewed over 190 manuscripts and proposals for numerous journal entities.

Michaela has many optimistic plans for her career and future research. She hopes to continue mentoring and advising students to help them succeed in their professional lives, and continue making contributions in the areas of geographic information science and technology, land system science, and biogeography/landscape ecology with practical implications for sustainable land management, species conservation, and public health. By contributing to these fields, she believes she will be able to help enhance the intellectual understanding of such diverse topics that also have practical value for improving human and environmental well-being. Over the next few years, she will be fully engaged in her current projects while seeking additional funding to expand on her ongoing efforts. Buenemann states that she is always open to collaboration and anticipates becoming more acquainted with the individuals at NM WRRI and working with them to share complementary knowledge and skills.