This invention is a family of reusable hybrid polymer materials, made as hydrogels or resin-like beads, designed to remove dissolved metals from water. The materials are built from glycolipid-based building blocks that are modified with metal binding groups, then formed into stable gels, beads, coatings, or thin films. In use, the media is placed in contact with contaminated water so that metals bind to the material, allowing the water to be cleaned and the metals to be collected in a controlled way. A major feature is that the media can be tuned for different use cases. It can be designed to capture a broad class of metals (such as rare earth elements) or focus on one priority metal when selectivity matters. After loading, the media can be regenerated so it can be used again, and the captured metals can be released into a smaller volume for recovery, treatment, or both. This supports practical field use because it aims to combine strong metal capture with repeatability, lower material waste, and a clear pathway to recover valuable metals while reducing environmental risk. Background: Many mining, industrial, and legacy pollution sites produce contaminated water with dissolved metals that can be toxic (e.g. lead) or economically valuable (e.g. rare earth elements). Common treatment options can be energy intensive, produce large waste streams, or focus only on removal without supporting selective separation and recovery. This invention was developed to address that gap by using environmentally compatible polymer media that can selectively bind metals, support separation (not just bulk removal), and then be regenerated for repeated use. Compared with approaches like reverse osmosis and conventional ion exchange or solvent extraction, this approach aims to reduce energy and material intensity while adding metal selectivity and enabling recovery of metals for environmental and economic benefit. Applications:
Advantages: