NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nantechnology Enabled Water Treatment Systems (NEWT)

NSF 纳米系统纳米技术水处理系统工程研究中心 (NEWT)

• 批准号: 1449500
• 负责人: Pedro Alvarez
• 金额: $ 1850万
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1449500&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Nanosystems; Engineering; Research; Center

Title: A Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment.Access to safe drinking water is a basic need for all life on the planet. It is a grand challenge linked to public health, energy production, and sustainable development. This is not just a need in the developing world. Over 40 million Americans are not connected to a municipal water system and rely on the quality of the water available from wells. The quality of this water varies with location and climate change exacerbates fresh water scarcity. The technologies that result from the research of this center will broaden access to clean drinking water with a variety of potential sources (e.g. groundwater from wells, salt water, brackish water, or recycled industrial water). The modular systems that will be designed will address drinking water from the scale of a household, to a neighborhood to a remote town. These technologies will also find application to help people get drinking water during natural disasters. In addition to drinking water, the Center will improve the water "footprint" of oil and gas exploration and production operations by helping to increase the quality of water cleanup for reuse and recycle. The environmental impact of water use in these industrial settings will be improved, saving energy and water resources. Students trained in this Center will have a multidisciplinary, team-based research experience with the skills needed to translate their research to a broad set of stakeholders (e.g., industrial organizations, governmental organizations, and citizens) that lack a secure source of clean water.The ERC is led by Rice University, with partners at Arizona State University, University of Texas-El Paso and Yale University. The Center's use of nanotechnology will allow the design and manufacture of multifunctional nanomaterials to adsorb a wide variety of pollutants including oxo-anions, total dissolved solids, nitrates, salts, organics, foulants, scalants, viruses and microbes. These nanomaterials will be immobilized in membranes that are packaged into system modules. The use of modules offers flexibility of targeted pollutant(s) and end-use application capacity or scale of delivered water rate. Novel photonic, electronic, catalytic, and magnetic engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) will introduce new approaches to transform water treatment from a large, chemical- and energy-intensive process toward compact physical and catalytic systems. These innovations will benefit multiple stakeholders, from rural communities and locations hit by natural disasters to hydraulic fracturing oil and gas sites, where reuse of produced waters minimizes regional environmental impacts. The Center's innovative technologies are founded on rigorous basic research. Component technologies include fouling-resistant, high-permeability membranes that use ENMs for surface self-cleaning and biofilm control; capacitive deionization with highly conductive and selective electrodes to remove scalants (divalent ions); rapid magnetic separation of paramagnetic nanosorbents for easy reuse; nanophotonics-enabled direct solar membrane distillation for low-energy desalination; disinfection and advanced oxidation/reduction using nanocatalysts; and template-assisted nanocrystallization for scaling control. Fundamental research on ENM interactions with water pollutants and substrate materials; integrated unit processes that immobilize, support, or recover ENMs; and safety by design demonstrated in testbeds will ensure that the Center's systems are resilient, economical, and highly efficient.

标题：纳米系统工程纳米技术研究中心启用水处理。安全饮用水是对地球上所​​有生命的基本需求。这是与公共卫生，能源生产和可持续发展有关的巨大挑战。这不仅是发展中国家的需求。超过4000万美国人与市政供水系统没有连接，而依靠井的水质质量。这种水的质量随着位置和气候变化而变化，加剧了淡水稀缺性。该中心研究产生的技术将扩大使用各种潜在来源的清洁饮用水的通道（例如，来自井，盐水，咸水或再生工业水的地下水）。将设计的模块化系统将解决从家庭规模到社区到偏远城镇的饮用水。这些技术还将找到应用程序，以帮助人们在自然灾害期间获得饮用水。除了饮用水外，该中心还将通过帮助提高清理水质以重复使用和回收的水质来改善石油和天然气勘探和生产操作的“占地面积”。这些工业环境中用水的环境影响将得到改善，从而节省能源和水资源。 Students trained in this Center will have a multidisciplinary, team-based research experience with the skills needed to translate their research to a broad set of stakeholders (e.g., industrial organizations, governmental organizations, and citizens) that lack a secure source of clean water.The ERC is led by Rice University, with partners at Arizona State University, University of Texas-El Paso and Yale University.该中心对纳米技术的使用将允许设计和制造多功能的纳米材料，以吸附多种污染物，包括氧烟，总溶解固体，硝酸盐，硝酸盐，盐，盐，有机物，有机物，污垢，鳞片，鳞片，病毒和微生物。这些纳米材料将被固定在包装到系统模块中的膜中。模块的使用提供了靶向污染物和最终用途的应用能力或水路的尺度的灵活性。新型的光子，电子，催化和磁性工程纳米材料（ENM）将引入新的方法，将水处理从大型，化学和能源密集型过程转变为紧凑的物理和催化系统。这些创新将使多个利益相关者受益，从自然灾害击中的农村社区和地点到液压破裂的石油和天然气地点，在这种情况下，生产的水的再利用可将区域环境影响最小化。该中心的创新技术建立在严格的基础研究基础上。组件技术包括使用ENM进行表面自我清洁和生物膜控制的抗污染，高渗透性膜；电容性去离子用高导电和选择性电极去除量表剂（二价离子）；顺磁性纳米吸附剂的快速磁分离，以便于重复使用；低能淡化的纳米素型直接太阳膜蒸馏；使用纳米催化剂的消毒和晚期氧化/还原；和模板辅助纳米结构化用于缩放控制。与水污染物和底物材料相互作用的基础研究；集成了固定，支持或恢复ENM的单元流程；测试床中证明的设计和安全性将确保中心的系统具有弹性，经济和高效。