CAREER: Locally Enhanced Electric Field Treatment (LEEFT) for Chemical-Free Water Disinfection

事业：用于无化学水消毒的局部增强电场处理 (LEEFT)

• 批准号: 1845354
• 负责人: Xing Xie
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1845354&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Locally; Enhanced; Electric; Field

Over 800 million people worldwide do not have adequate supply of safe drinking water. In many areas serviced by drinking water treatment plants, chlorine is used to kill harmful microbes. However, chlorination can produce chemicals that are known human carcinogens. An innovative technology that can provide point-of-service treatment to areas without adequate drinking water supply is locally enhanced electric field treatment (LEEFT). High disinfection has been achieved by LEEFT operated at low voltages with a short treatment time of a few seconds. LEEFT has the added benefits of being relatively inexpensive, chemical-free, robust, and easy to operate. In this project, the PI will study how harmful microbes in drinking water are killed during LEEFT treatment. This work has the goal of developing LEEFT for wide-scale adoption for drinking water treatment to protect public health. The educational plan of this project focuses on training future environmental engineering leaders at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate level. This effort will be complimented by public outreach to increase awareness of water safety and better prepare the public to respond to disruptions in water supply due to unexpected natural disasters.LEEFT is a physical treatment process that aims to utilize a strong electric field to disrupt cell membranes and thus inactivate pathogens in drinking water. The electrodes installed in a LEEFT device are typically modified with one-dimensional nanostructures so that the electric field is not uniform but enhanced locally near the tips of the nanostructures. This project will systematically investigate the behavior of bacteria during LEEFT with four specific objectives: i) obtaining LEEFT platforms that are suitable for mechanistic study, ii) understanding the mechanisms for bacteria inactivation during LEEFT, iii) revealing the processes for cell transportation in LEEFT devices, and iv) developing a mechanistic model of LEEFT for performance prediction. The core hypothesis is that during LEEFT, bacteria are transported to the regions with strong electric field by a combination of hydrodynamic-, electrophoretic-, and dielectrophoretic-forces, and then inactivated primarily due to irreversible electroporation. Some platforms in this project will be constructed on lab-on-a-chip devices fabricated using micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technologies. LEEFT experiments will be performed under various conditions, e.g., electrode materials, frequency of the electric pulses, mixing conditions, and model bacteria. The model will be built based on experimental results using COMSOL Multiphysics, a software using advanced numerical methods to analyze, solve, and simulate physics-based problems. The integrated educational activities involve a program entitled WE-HUG (Water-safety Education and training for High school, Undergraduate, & Graduate students), where a vertical team of high school teachers and students are recruited to develop and deliver education modules that reflect the scientific and engineering aspects of the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

全球有超过 8 亿人没有足够的安全饮用水供应。在许多有饮用水处理厂的地区，氯用于杀死有害微生物。然而，氯化会产生已知的人类致癌物质的化学物质。局部增强电场处理 (LEEFT) 是一项创新技术，可以为饮用水供应不足的地区提供服务点处理。 LEEFT 在低电压下运行，处理时间短至几秒，从而实现了高消毒效果。 LEEFT 还具有相对便宜、不含化学品、坚固且易于操作等优点。在这个项目中，PI 将研究 LEEFT 处理过程中如何杀死饮用水中的有害微生物。这项工作的目标是开发 LEEFT 以广泛应用于饮用水处理，以保护公众健康。该项目的教育计划侧重于培养高中、本科生和研究生水平的未来环境工程领导者。这项努力将得到公众宣传的支持，以提高水安全意识，并更好地让公众做好应对因意外自然灾害造成的供水中断的准备。LEEFT 是一种物理处理过程，旨在利用强电场破坏细胞膜从而灭活饮用水中的病原体。 LEEFT 装置中安装的电极通常采用一维纳米结构进行修饰，因此电场不均匀，而是在纳米结构尖端附近局部增强。该项目将系统地研究LEEFT过程中细菌的行为，有四个具体目标：i）获得适合机理研究的LEEFT平台，ii）了解LEEFT过程中细菌失活的机制，iii）揭示LEEFT设备中细胞运输的过程，以及 iv) 开发用于性能预测的 LEEFT 机制模型。核心假设是，在LEEFT过程中，细菌通过水动力、电泳力和介电泳力的组合被转运到强电场区域，然后主要由于不可逆电穿孔而失活。该项目中的一些平台将构建在使用微机电系统（MEMS）技术制造的芯片实验室设备上。 LEEFT 实验将在各种条件下进行，例如电极材料、电脉冲频率、混合条件和模型细菌。该模型将基于使用 COMSOL Multiphysics 的实验结果构建，该软件使用先进的数值方法来分析、解决和模拟基于物理的问题。综合教育活动包括一个名为 WE-HUG（针对高中、本科生和研究生的水安全教育和培训）的计划，该计划招募了一支由高中教师和学生组成的垂直团队来开发和提供反映水安全教育的模块。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Locally Enhanced Electric Field Treatment (LEEFT) Promotes the Performance of Ozonation for Bacteria Inactivation by Disrupting the Cell Membrane

局部增强电场处理 (LEEFT) 通过破坏细胞膜促进臭氧灭活细菌的性能

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c03968
• 发表时间: 2020-11
• 期刊: Environmental Science & Technology
• 影响因子: 11.4
• 作者: Zhou, Jianfeng;Wang, Ting;Xie, Xing
• 通讯作者: Xie, Xing

Locally enhanced electric field treatment (LEEFT) for water disinfection

用于水消毒的局部增强电场处理（LEEFT）

• DOI: 10.1007/s11783-020-1253-x
• 发表时间: 2020-05-14
• 期刊: Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering
• 影响因子: 6.4
• 作者: Jianfeng Zhou;Ting Wang;Cecilia Yu;Xing Xie
• 通讯作者: Xing Xie

Emerging investigator series: locally enhanced electric field treatment (LEEFT) with nanowire-modified electrodes for water disinfection in pipes

新兴研究者系列：使用纳米线修饰电极进行局部增强电场处理（LEEFT），用于管道中的水消毒

• DOI: 10.1039/c9en00875f
• 发表时间: 2020-02-20
• 期刊: Environmental Science: Nano
• 作者: Jianfeng Zhou;Ting Wang;Wensi Chen;Beichen Lin;Xing Xie
• 通讯作者: Xing Xie

Application of electric field treatment (EFT) for microbial control in water and liquid food

电场处理 (EFT) 在水和液态食品微生物控制中的应用

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.130561
• 发表时间: 2023-03
• 期刊: Journal of Hazardous Materials
• 影响因子: 13.6
• 作者: Zhou, Jianfeng;Hung, Yen;Xie, Xing
• 通讯作者: Xie, Xing

Rapid determination of the electroporation threshold for bacteria inactivation using a lab-on-a-chip platform

使用芯片实验室平台快速测定细菌灭活的电穿孔阈值

• DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.105040
• 发表时间: 2019-11
• 期刊: Environment International
• 影响因子: 11.8
• 作者: Wang, Ting;Chen, Hang;Yu, Cecilia;Xie, Xing
• 通讯作者: Xie, Xing