Developers of NETL’s Multi-Functional Sorbent Technology (MUST), a suite of sorbents that offers a practical, affordable and green approach to remove contaminants from water and manufacturing processes, received a bronze award at the Edison Awards Gala held April 21 in Fort Myers, Florida.

The Edison Awards is an international annual competition honoring excellence in new product and service development, marketing, human-centered design and innovation. MUST received its awards in the Eco-Innovation category.

The team’s innovative technology removes selenium and other metals that contaminate water supplies across America and jeopardize the health of millions of people, wildlife and fragile ecosystems. MUST is the only sorbent-based technology known to NETL that effectively reduces selenium to meet federal discharge limits consistently.

In addition, MUST is regenerable and reusable, providing a recycling advantage that reduces waste, lowers costs and makes the product accessible to a wide range of consumers and industries. NETL partners in the development of MUST products include Dow Chemical, whose plans call for using MUST in pharmaceutical and electronic production processes.

Members of the MUST team earning the Edison Awards honors are NETL’s McMahan Gray, Brian Kail, Walter Wilfong, Qiuming Wang, Fan Shi and Tuo Ji, as well as Xue (Ida) Chen, global product technical leader at Dow Chemical.

The MUST team has earned multiple awards. In October, the researchers received a prestigious R&D 100 Award in the Mechanical/Materials category. Two months later, the team received the Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award, one of the highest department honors a federal employee or contractor can receive.

Edison winners represent game-changing products and services, as well as excellence and leadership in innovation around four criteria — concept, value, delivery and impact. The awards are named after Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) whose new product and market development methods garnered him 1,093 U.S. patents and made him a household name.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.

Top: NETL’s Fan Shi accepts an Edison Award for the Lab’s development of Multi-Functional Sorbent Technology (MUST) on April 21 in Fort Myers, Florida.