US 12466744 B1Patent grantUnited States

Nickel–Borate Composite for Water Remediation

Official patent title

Particulate nanocomposite material

Arabic title: مادة نانو مركبة جسيمية

Invention

Problem

Water containing inorganic contaminants or persistent organics may require more than one treatment mechanism. A multifunctional medium must combine pollutant interaction, stability, recovery, and safe reuse.

Why it matters

A porous material that supports contaminant immobilization and light-assisted degradation could broaden treatment options for mixed industrial or municipal wastewater.

Approach

The disclosed honeycomb-like composite contains carbon, cubic nickel, cubic NiO, orthorhombic CaB2O4, and MgB2O4 and is prepared through chelated solution-gel processing followed by calcination.

Who may benefit

Potential beneficiaries include water-treatment researchers, environmental-remediation companies, industrial wastewater operators, photocatalyst developers, and advanced-material suppliers.

Potential value

The patent defines five phases or elements, atomic-composition ranges, 60–70 nm crystallites, a multimodal pore structure, and two claimed pollutant-treatment modes.

Background

Inorganic ions and organic micropollutants behave differently in water. Immobilization binds contaminants to a solid, while irradiation can promote transformation of organic molecules. Multiphase nickel and borate materials may provide adsorption and redox sites, and a honeycomb morphology may improve fluid contact. Treatment value cannot be inferred from phase characterization alone; it requires pollutant-specific capacity, kinetics, mineralization, product analysis, leaching, and reuse tests. The patent presents a material and preparation route with proposed aqueous treatment uses.

Technology overview

XRD identifies elemental carbon, cubic nickel, cubic NiO, orthorhombic CaB2O4, and MgB2O4. Atomic ranges are 1–10 at.% each for C, Ni, B, and Ca and 5–15 at.% Mg. The material has 60–70 nm volume-average crystallites, granular honeycomb particles, and pore fractions below 0.5 µm and above 1 µm. Magnesium, calcium, nickel salts, boric acid, a chelator, and polyol form a gel that is dried at 200–400 °C and calcined at 500–800 °C.

Potential applications

Inorganic-contaminant immobilization research.
Light-assisted organic-pollutant degradation.
Mixed-wastewater treatment-media screening.
Porous nickel-borate material development.

Evidence-supported advantages

Combines metallic nickel, nickel oxide, and borate phases.
Provides a honeycomb-like porous morphology.
Defines crystallite and elemental ranges.
Uses a solution-gel preparation route.
Claims both immobilization and irradiated degradation uses.

Development stage

Laboratory synthesis and phase, elemental, crystallite, and morphology characterization are described; pollutant performance, leaching, reuse, and commercialization were not established. The development stage was not independently verified.

Commercial opportunity

The material could be screened for mixed-pollutant water treatment. Commercial evaluation requires pollutant-specific capacity and kinetics, mineralization and by-product analysis, nickel and boron leaching, recovery and reuse, real-water and competing-ion tests, reactor or column scale-up, ecotoxicity, batch reproducibility, calcination cost, and waste classification.

Patent classifications

WIPO IPC

C01G53/04Compounds containing metals not covered by subclasses C01D or C01F
B82Y30/00Specific uses or applications of nanostructures; measurement or analysis of nanostructures; manufacture or treatment of nanostructures

CPC

C01G53/04Compounds containing metals not covered by subclasses C01D or C01F
B82Y30/00Specific uses or applications of nanostructures; measurement or analysis of nanostructures; manufacture or treatment of nanostructures
C01B35/126Non-metallic elements; compounds thereof
C01P2004/03Indexing scheme for structural and physical aspects of solid inorganic compounds
C01P2002/76Indexing scheme for structural and physical aspects of solid inorganic compounds
C01P2006/17Indexing scheme for structural and physical aspects of solid inorganic compounds
C01P2002/85Indexing scheme for structural and physical aspects of solid inorganic compounds
C01P2004/64Indexing scheme for structural and physical aspects of solid inorganic compounds
C01P2004/30Indexing scheme for structural and physical aspects of solid inorganic compounds

Inventors

First inventorEhab Abdelhamed Abdelrahman Ahmed

Keywords

particulate nanocomposite
nickel oxide
calcium borate
magnesium borate
honeycomb structure
pollutant immobilization
photodegradation

Patent document and drawings

The patent publication is mapped to this record. Patent drawings remain within that publication; no separately cleared public media package has been supplied.