The academic excellence and commitment to sustainable development of the Industrial University of Santander (UIS) were once again highlighted at the national level. Metallurgical engineer Santiago Torres Bermúdez, a graduate of the UIS, won third place in the Sustainable Development and Environment category of the 27th edition of the Otto de Greiff National Competition, one of the most important academic competitions in the country.
The competition jury awarded him the prize for his thesis entitled “Cu–Ni bimetallic dendrite foams obtained by electrodeposition for the removal of mercury from contaminated water,” a research project aimed at proposing technological solutions to mercury water pollution, an environmental and public health problem mainly associated with artisanal and small-scale gold mining
A sustainable electrochemical solution
The proposal developed by the UIS graduate is based on a sustainable electrochemical process that allows the synthesis of porous electrode materials with a high surface area and high efficiency for the removal of mercury dissolved in water.
The study also deepens the understanding of the physicochemical phenomena involved in the decontamination process, providing key knowledge for the design of more efficient and replicable environmental technologies.
The research is particularly relevant in the Colombian context, where artisanal mining continues to be one of the main sources of anthropogenic mercury pollution, despite the commitments made under the Minamata Convention. In this sense, the work is directly aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, in particular SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation.
International projection
The research team published part of the study’s results in the international scientific journal Materials Today Communications, in the Netherlands, as a result of a collaboration between the Research Group on Minerals, Biohydrometallurgy, and the Environment (GIMBA) and the Biomedical Imaging, Vision, and Learning Laboratory (BIVL²ab) at the UIS.
The publication shows how the use of deep learning techniques applied to image analysis allows the degree of mercury removal to be estimated based on changes in the morphology of the material, offering an innovative tool for monitoring decontamination processes.
Santiago Torres Bermúdez is currently pursuing a doctorate in Materials Engineering and conducting his experimental research at the Electrochemistry Laboratory of the Guatiguará Technology Park at the Industrial University of Santander, with an emphasis on sustainable development, climate change mitigation, and energy transition through photoelectrochemical processes.
The University celebrates this recognition, which reaffirms the impact of university research in the search for solutions to environmental problems of national and global scope, and highlights the contribution of its graduates to the scientific and technological advancement of the country.
