A system developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology uses gypsum to redirect microbial digestion during wastewater treatment, preventing methane emissions and creating usable industrial minerals, MIT reported on August 28, 2026.
Gage Coon, a third-year PhD student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, designed the approach alongside his advisor, geobiology professor Tanja Bosak. In conventional wastewater treatment, microorganisms break down organic material inside large anaerobic digester tanks, generating methane gas as a byproduct. Coon and his team added gypsum, an industrial waste product from fertilizer manufacturing, into the digestion process to change what the microbes produce.
The chemical reaction converts the methane into carbonate, which manufacturers can use in cement, agricultural goods, and pharmaceuticals. The treatment also yields elemental sulfur, an input for global fertilizer manufacturing that industrial producers currently source from oil and gas refinement. The laboratory stage of the experiments has concluded, and the team is communicating with commercial companies to adapt the system for pilot-scale testing at larger municipal facilities.
Wetlands and Hydrogen
The wastewater digestion project forms one part of Coon’s doctoral research into microbial carbon and sulfur cycling. Coon also investigates underground geological processes where iron-rich rocks break down to produce molecular hydrogen, an energy source that emits no carbon.
A separate strand of his thesis examines coastal wetlands. Coon measures how microbes compete for acetate, evaluating the impact of that competition on global wetland methane emissions. His research aims to improve predictions for climate models and inform engineered methods to lower wetland emissions.
Coon, a first-generation college student raised in Waverly, Tennessee, began working with microbial biogeochemistry while studying chemistry at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. In 2022, following his second undergraduate year, Coon took part in an oceanographic research cruise along the Atlantic continental slope to analyze methane seeps and observe how deep-sea microbes capture the escaping gas.
Beyond his lab research at MIT, Coon mentors undergraduate researchers from MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and Tufts University in experimental geobiology techniques.
