I-Corps: Materials and methods for enhanced water purification

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of new materials and processes for removing natural and anthropogenic contaminants from drinking water. There are areas that do not have continuous access to clean drinking water from a public utility. Often water treatment facilities are not able to easily remove organic contaminants from the water source before the disinfection step and distribution. This technology potentially removes the molecular contaminants that lead to these harmful and regulated disinfection byproducts. The largest commercial impact related to the technology is likely from removing contaminants from water during acute natural or anthropogenic events. Drought or floods can increase contaminants into the natural water supply. Extreme weather can also disrupt water supplies due to flooding, especially when waste water is discharged into the water supply. Industrial accidents like petroleum spills, pipeline leaks, and coal ash pond breaches can disrupt the water supply of an entire city for weeks or longer. The materials and processes developed here can be designed for these acute or emergency management events. This I-Corps project demonstrates the development of a technology platform to remove molecular and ionic contaminant from natural waters and from treated water. The technology outperforms current methods at removing the smallest molecules that seem to be the most recalcitrant and can be potentially harmful to human health. The intellectual merit of this project centers upon this flexible platform of functionalized materials with controllable morphology. Short oligomers are synthesized with specific functionality to adsorb various water contaminants. These oligomers are functionalized to scaffolding materials and form a contact resin that adsorbs a high capacity of molecular species in a very rapid rate. The ability to control the morphology of the scaffolding allows maintenance of the high surface area exposed to the contaminated water. Moreover, the porosity is kept high enough to allow a fast-filtration method of water treatment.