Phinix LLC, Virginia Tech (lead), and Covanta Win Prestigious R&D contracts from the US Department of Energy, ARPA-E

Sustainable Resource management has been the key focus area for Phinix LLC, founded and headed by Dr. Subodh Das in 2008. The company has been delivering successful R&D projects for the light metal industry focusing on processes & product development, energy efficiency & conservation, recycling, scrap sortation & sustainability.

Recently, a research team comprising Virginia Tech (lead), Phinix, LLC and Covanta has received an R&D contract from Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) under the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2019, ARPA-E announced funding opportunities for a range of innovative and unconventional ideas across the energy technology spectrum, focusing on high-risk R&D. Phinix LLC and Partners won a project under this opportunity on the topic “Physical, Chemical, and Mineralogical Characterizations of MSWI Ash Product and Recommendations for Downstream Processing.”

Virginia Tech will perform the characterizations on natural and synthetic municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) ash materials and propose potential downstream processing flowsheets. The research team will focus on revealing the conversion mechanisms of valuable metals in MSW during incineration, as well as the occurrence modes, partitioning behavior, and recoverability of critical metals in MSWI ash.