CWI-funded Projects Summer 2024
1. Addressing the inadequacy of current membrane technology for micro/nano-plastics removal
- Faculty Mentor: Yuanzhe Liang
- Project Description: This research project aims to tackle the pressing challenge of micro and nano-plastics pollution in water sources by addressing the current limitations of membrane technology for their removal. By investigating innovative methods and materials, the project seeks to enhance the efficiency and scalability of filtration techniques, thereby contributing to the global pursuit of cleaner water. The ultimate goal is to develop a breakthrough in membrane technology that can effectively eliminate these pollutants from water, ensuring safer and healthier ecosystems and human communities. Through this project, undergraduates will have the opportunity to contribute to a critical area of environmental research, directly impacting the sustainability of our planet's most vital resource.
2. Hydrogels for the Cometabolic Transformation of Emerging Contaminants in Groundwater and Wastewater
- Faculty Mentor: Lew Semprini
- Project Description: The student will join a team of researchers that are investigating the advanced biological treatment of emerging contaminants in groundwater and wastewater. A pure bacteria culture, along with a compound that slowly produces a growth substrate, are being co-encapsulated in hydrogel beads to create a long-term sustainable biological treatment process. The student will investigate if effective treatment of an emerging contaminant, such as 1,2,3-trichlorpropane, can be achieved using the hydrogel beads that are being developed.
3. Wildfire Impacts on Drinking Water Treatment
- Faculty Mentor: Xue Jin
- Project Description: The occurrence of large, high severity wildfires has increased in the Pacific Northwest, potentially degrading source water quality and challenging drinking water treatment (DWT). In the past decade, the application of low-pressure membranes for DWT has experienced accelerated growth due to their effectiveness in producing high quality water, small footprint, and relatively low costs. In this project, post-fire sediments will be used to simulate wildfire-impacted source water. The objective is to identify mechanisms that control (1) membrane fouling, (2) contaminant removal, and (3) disinfection byproduct formation. We will explore the impact of pretreatment, membrane material and module on treatment effectiveness.
4. Certification of an X-ray tomography cell to monitor ocean plastic decomposition
- Faculty Mentor: Kostas Goulas
- Project Description: Ocean plastics are a persistent problem for wildlife and coastal communities. A promising methodology to address this issue is to convert them to hydrocarbons via cracking. We seek to understand the drivers of cracking by operando X-ray tomography. To achieve this goal, we need to certify a reactor cell.
5. Impacts of micro and nanoscale tire wear particles on aquatic organisms
- Faculty Mentor: Stacey Harper
- Project Description: Tires represent a ubiquitous and complex pollutant that requires a comprehensive examination to develop effective management and remediation strategies. Tire wear particles emitted during use are now recognized as a major component of microplastics in urban runoff and a source of unique and highly potent toxic substances. Studies in the Harper laboratory will focus on the impacts of both micron and nanoscale tire particles on freshwater algae since they play a critical role as primary producers in aquatic ecosystems.
6. Minimizing Water Utilization for Sustainable Lithium-ion Battery Recycling
- Faculty Mentor: Zhenxing Feng
- Project Description: Due to the scarce resource of lithium, recycling of lithium and lithium compounds from lithium-ion batteries is necessary for the sustainable development of human society. However, the utilization of water in lithium recycling is intensive, requiring hundreds of liters per kg of metal produced. In addition, the recycling processes also produce huge amount of wastewater that requires additional handling. In this project, student will work with Oregon based company, OnTo Technology, to develop new direct recycling strategies that can efficiently use water for lithium-ion recycling. The waste streams produced from recycling processes will be analyzed to evaluate the contaminants at the electrode surface and quantify waste composition.
7. Extracting Valuable Resources from Dairy Waste Streams
- Faculty Mentor: Hong Liu
- Project Description: This project focuses on the production and extraction of medium-chain carboxylic acids, precursors to jet fuel, from dairy waste streams while simultaneously treating these streams. Mismanagement of such waste poses a threat to water quality. Students will gain hands-on experience with microbial and electrochemical processes, learning to analyze both the waste streams and the derived products.
8. Biofilm growth and preservation in porous media on the International Space Station
- Faculty Mentor: Tala Navab-Daneshmand
- Project Description: This project aims to determine the role of gravity on the growth of biofilms in porous media. To achieve this goal, we will perform experiments in the laboratory on Earth to define experimental parameters needed during the launch of our experiment to the International Space Station. The findings support better models for how to use biofilms for remediation of contaminants in groundwater and in trickling filters. The undergraduate student will work under the mentorship of a PhD student to tests experimental conditions for the growth and preservation of biofilms.
9. Anaerobic co-digestion: Making alternative energy from food waste
- Faculty Mentor: Tyler Radniecki
- Project Description: Anaerobic digestion is a critical process in the treatment of solids found in wastewater. Anaerobic digestion utilizes complex microbial communities to break down organic solids and produces methane, which can be utilized as an energy source, but is generally not created at levels that are economically viable. The addition of food waste to the anaerobic digesters, a process called co-digestion, can boost methane productions to levels making capture economically viable, but can be unpredictable. This project will study how anaerobic digester microbial communities respond to the addition of different concentrations of food waste.
10. Electrochemical assay for monitoring water sources for pharmaceutical contamination of oxcarbazepine
- Faculty Mentor: Elain Fu
- Project Description: Pharmaceutical contamination of water sources is a significant concern, and in particular the accumulation of toxic drugs that do not easily degrade and can negatively impact downstream use and users. One of these drugs is oxcarbazepine, for which remediation efficiency is low in wastewater treatment plants, and the products from its degradation can be toxic. Thus, there is a need for a user-friendly method of measuring oxcarbazepine levels to enable informed choices on the effective and safe use of our water resources. The goal of this summer project is to help develop an electrochemical assay for oxcarbazepine detection in water.
11. Quantification and Identification of PFAS and Total Fluorine during Thermal Degradation of Fluoropolymers
- Faculty Mentor: Skip Rochefort (CBEE) and Jennifer Field (Env. and Molecular Toxicology)
- Project Description: The overall objective of this project is to quantify and mechanistically understand the PFAS that evolve from the thermal degradation of fluorpolymeric materials including Teflon(reg), Viton(reg), and Kel-F(reg) in neat form and when mixed with explosives in plastic-bonded explosive (e.g., PBXN-5), and in Magnesium/Teflon(reg)/Viton(reg) (MTV) pyrotechnics. The specific objectives of the summer project is to characterize the PFAS thermal degradation products formed from neat fluoropolymers and how they might end-up in the environment - soil, water, and air.
12. Optimizing MOF-based water harvesters
- Faculty Mentor: Cory Simon
- Project Description: Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are tunable, nanoporous materials capable of harvesting water from air during arid conditions. The goal of this project, which is computational, is to (1) gather (a) MOF water adsorption data from the literature and (b) weather/climate data in different regions, (2) use the adsorption data to develop a thermodynamic model capable of predicting water adsorption in the MOFs as a function of temperature and pressure, then (3) based on the weather data, match the optimal MOF with the region/day. The objective is to tailor and optimize passive, MOF-based water harvesters for different climates or predicted weather conditions for providing the maximal amount of clean drinking water per mass of MOF. Source: 10.1021/acscentsci.0c00678
13. Contaminants of Environmental Concern (CECs) in Nutrient Recovery via Electrodialysis
- Faculty Mentor: Xue Jin
- Project Description: Electrodialysis (ED) has been proven to be an energy-efficient and economically promising technology for recovering nutrients (K, N, P) from the sidestream of actual wastewater. However, besides nutrients, wastewater may contain emerging contaminants that are detrimental to the environment and human health, such as antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and PFAS. In this project, CECs composition before and after ED treatment will be characterized. Machine learning models will be applied to understand the mechanisms of CECs migration during nutrient recovery and predict the membrane performance.