James D. Englehardt - US grants

The objective of this EFRI-SEED project is to develop principles for the design of net-zero water buildings, off the water grid. These principles represent a paradigm shift from centralized reduction of oxygen demand, to energy-minimal conveyance and permanent destruction of pharmaceuticals, responsive to technological evolution. Three knowledge barriers are addressed: sustainable treatment system scaling and design; sociocultural and architectural acceptance; and real-time risk assessment. Concepts for system scaling will mimic energy minimal allometric scaling relationships in biological circulatory systems. New energy-minimal electrocatalytic treatment for effective destruction of pharmaceuticals will be advanced. Energy-intensive reverse osmosis (RO) treatment will be avoided through cistern drinking and make-up water, low-flow adaptation of new cloth filtration technology, and metallic iron-mediated filtration. To surmount acceptance barriers, behavioral simulations, interviews, and focus groups will first identify individual and group barriers to adoption and then test approaches for improving sociocultural acceptability. Design components including cisterns, residuals storage, annual maintenance, and natural water releases will be considered within the theoretical framework of New Urbanist architecture. Methods of evidence fusion will be developed for machine-learned assessment of in-vitro toxicity from fluorescence spectra, to advance real-time risk monitoring and to ensure system safety.

System design concepts will directly address the energetics of water and wastewater conveyance, representing 15% of U.S. electric power generation, and leverage emerging capability for automated treatment, monitoring, and decentralized operation and maintenance. De facto reuse of surface water consisting largely of treated wastewater would be replaced with explicitly engineered control. Water rationing, and treatment of hardness, arsenic, and boron, and other geologic impurities, would be largely obviated. Treatment would be designed to routinely, permanently destroy pharmaceuticals, addressing widespread biotic feminization. Benefits will propagate through the engagement of a new generation in their future, immersed by living in a dedicated, cross-disciplinary, undergraduate ~20-bed retrofitted dorm unit with design input by students. Well-represented Caribbean and Latin student populations will continue to be involved along with participating agencies and industry partners, for immersion in terms of research, industrial partnerships, public tours, and 1-2 high school student projects (MAST Academy). A Capstone Net-Zero Water Workshop will include regulators, consulting firms, students, and faculty.


The FY 2010 EFRI-SEED Topic that supports this project was sponsored by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG), Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), and Computer & Information Science and Engineering in collaboration with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

1519058
Englehardt

Title: RAPID-GOALI: Development of a Field-Deployable Net-Zero Water Wash Station for Remote Ebola Decontamination

A field-deployable, clean-water wash station emerged as a priority for Ebola response. The PI's group has recently demonstrated low-energy, low-emission, net-zero water reuse, converting comingled black and grey water to drinking water at a university residence hall. While such technology has not been feasible for remote field deployment due to operational complexity and energy demand, the advent of new, energy-efficient, low-maintenance, small, light microplasma ozone generation modules along with the emerging UV-ozone advanced oxidation make such a vision possible.

Current advanced oxidation and membrane filtration technologies require chemical dosing or other operationally-intensive procedures, and/or disposal of a concentrate stream, making remote deployment impractical. However, emerging UV-ozone advanced oxidation technology, coupled with new, low-energy, low-maintenance microplasma ozone generation modules, offers promise of clean water production anywhere, at any time. Therefore, design principles for chemical? and maintenance-free remote production of clean water, with annual lamp replacement, occasional rainwater makeup, and no human wastewater contact will be developed. Principles will include the integration and sizing of UV-ozone, microplasma ozone generation, and low-maintenance separations, mixing, and hydraulic technologies. Knowledge of kinetics and mechanisms of UV-ozone soap/foam mineralization, and the critical science of microbial and Ebola viral inactivation, will be advanced. This project, will develop a field-deployable, UV-microplasma-ozone net-zero water wash station (NZWWS) for Ebola decontamination. Tasks include industry-collaborative design and prototype construction using technology and equipment from the PI's current NSF Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation project. Kinetic tests of soap/foam mineralization; and viral inactivation using Bacillus thuringensis spores, MS2 bacteriophage, and Cystoviridae as Ebolavirus surrogates by current EPA collaborators. Spartan Environmental Technologies, LLC expects to be in a position to manufacture units by late 2015. The project will include two industry seminars, and continued scientific training of under-represented populations, part of a team of 70 students to date, including 34 female, 1 African-American, and 14 Hispanic undergraduates and high school interns. Graduate students will supervise 1-4 ten-week high-school internships, over summer 2015. Finally, two students of CAE 542 Environmental Health and two students of CAE 540 Environmental Chemistry will collaborate on a term project involving kinetic testing of the operating prototype.