NSF-BSF: Electrified Membrane System for Chemical-Free Nitrogen Recovery from Nitrate Contaminated Water

NSF-BSF：用于从硝酸盐污染水中回收无化学物质氮的带电膜系统

• 批准号: 2215387
• 负责人: Wen Zhang
• 金额: $ 45万
• 依托单位: New Jersey Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215387&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; BSF; Electrified; Membrane; System

Ammonia, one of the most important industrial commodities, is used for diverse applications including pharmaceutics, plastics, paper, and fertilizer production. Of the 176 million tons of annually produced ammonia worldwide, about 85% is used for fertilizer production. Furthermore, ammonia has recently received considerable attention as a promising fuel due to convenience and safety in transportation and storage. Currently, ammonia is commercially produced by an energy-intensive process that relies on natural gas as a feedstock. Recently, ammonia production was interrupted due to the pandemic impacts and other geopolitical factors, resulting in an increase in ammonia cost and supply chain uncertainties. Meanwhile, nitrogen, the central element of ammonia, is prevalent in municipal, agricultural, and industrial wastewaters in various chemical forms. These sources of nitrogen-containing waste could provide a reliable and cheap nitrogen source (around 2.4 billion kg per year) for ammonia production. Current wastewater treatment processes consume energy to remove waste nitrogen compounds and convert them into nitrogen gas without any recovery mechanisms. Additionally, despite the prevalence of drinking and wastewater treatment processes, there are still over 40 million people in the US that do not have access to municipally treated water, instead relying mostly on private groundwater wells that may contain nitrate and other oxyanion pollutants. Even in public water systems, nitrate is among the most commonly reported water quality violations in the US and could compromise the health of millions of people. Therefore, this international collaborative project between researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Ben-Gurion University in Israel aims to address the knowledge gaps related to recovering nitrogen from waste and converting it into ammonia while treating wastewater using an innovative electrified membrane process. Overall, the ultimate project goal is to explore a sustainable pathway to generate ammonia from nitrate-containing wastewater and alleviate the stresses from nitrate pollution and industrial ammonia production. To achieve this goal, this team of international collaborators will employ multifaceted approaches including electrochemical membrane filtration studies, computational chemistry, and numerical simulations to unravel the molecular-level interactions of nitrate with catalysts and ammonia with membrane interfaces and to delineate the dynamics mapping of reaction species (e.g., nitrate or ammonia) on cathodic membrane surfaces. The expected project outcomes include (1) examination of a suite of novel catalyst-coated hydrophobic gas exchange membranes that enable efficient nitrate reduction and simultaneous ammonia gas transfer; (2) synchronization of cathodic and anodic reactions for nitrate reduction and in situ acid production to trap ammonia; (3) clarification of mechanisms of electrochemical catalysis and mass transfer in this three-phase membrane interface via computational simulations and density functional theory analyses; (4) determination of the effects of wastewater matrices such as solution pH and co-existing substances on the stability of cathodic membrane operations; and (5) elucidation of potential scaling mechanisms and preventive strategies on cathodic/anodic surfaces. This project will foster a collaboration between the US and Israeli researchers and provide excellent research and educational training opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students of the two collaborating institutions. A fair and meaningful involvement of diverse New Jersey communities affected by groundwater nitrate will be accomplished through community outreach activities, and underrepresented students from the Garden State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (GS-LSAMP) will be involved in the green electrochemical chemistry and catalysis nanotechnology research.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.

氨是最重要的工业商品之一，用途广泛，包括制药、塑料、纸张和化肥生产。全球每年生产的 1.76 亿吨氨中，约 85% 用于化肥生产。此外，由于运输和储存的便利性和安全性，氨作为一种有前景的燃料最近受到了广泛的关注。目前，氨是通过依赖天然气作为原料的能源密集型工艺进行商业生产的。近期，受疫情影响等地缘政治因素影响，合成氨生产中断，导致合成氨成本增加，供应链不确定性增加。与此同时，氮（氨的核心元素）以各种化学形式普遍存在于城市、农业和工业废水中。这些含氮废物来源可以为氨生产提供可靠且廉价的氮源（每年约 24 亿公斤）。目前的废水处理过程消耗能量来去除废弃的氮化合物并将其转化为氮气，而没有任何回收机制。此外，尽管饮用水和废水处理工艺很普遍，但美国仍有超过 4000 万人无法获得市政处理过的水，而是主要依赖可能含有硝酸盐和其他氧阴离子污染物的私人地下水井。即使在公共供水系统中，硝酸盐也是美国最常见的水质违规问题之一，可能会损害数百万人的健康。因此，新泽西理工学院和以色列本古里安大学的研究人员之间的这个国际合作项目旨在解决与从废物中回收氮并将其转化为氨同时使用创新的带电膜工艺处理废水相关的知识差距。总体而言，项目的最终目标是探索一种从含硝酸盐废水中生产氨的可持续途径，并减轻硝酸盐污染和工业氨生产的压力。为了实现这一目标，这个国际合作者团队将采用多方面的方法，包括电化学膜过滤研究、计算化学和数值模拟，以揭示硝酸盐与催化剂以及氨与膜界面的分子级相互作用，并描绘反应的动态映射。阴极膜表面上的物质（例如硝酸盐或氨）。预期项目成果包括（1）检查一套新型催化剂涂层疏水性气体交换膜，该膜能够有效还原硝酸盐并同时传输氨气； (2)同步阴极和阳极反应进行硝酸盐还原和原位产酸以捕集氨； （3）通过计算模拟和密度泛函理论分析阐明三相膜界面的电化学催化和传质机制； (4)测定溶液pH、共存物质等废水基质对阴极膜运行稳定性的影响； (5) 阐明阴极/阳极表面的潜在结垢机制和预防策略。该项目将促进美国和以色列研究人员之间的合作，并为两个合作机构的研究生和本科生提供出色的研究和教育培训机会。受地下水硝酸盐影响的新泽西州各个社区将通过社区外展活动实现公平且有意义的参与，来自花园州路易斯斯托克斯少数民族参与联盟（GS-LSAMP）的代表性不足的学生将参与绿色电化学化学和催化纳米技术研究。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

Electrocatalytic Upcycling of Nitrate Wastewater into an Ammonia Fertilizer via an Electrified Membrane

通过带电膜将硝酸盐废水电催化升级改造为氨肥

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c08442
• 发表时间: 2022-08
• 期刊: Environmental Science & Technology
• 影响因子: 11.4
• 作者: Gao, Jianan;Shi, Ning;Li, Yifan;Jiang, Bo;Marhaba, Taha;Zhang, Wen
• 通讯作者: Zhang, Wen

Upcycling wastewater nitrate into ammonia fertilizer via concurrent electrocatalysis and membrane extraction

通过并行电催化和膜萃取将废水硝酸盐升级回收为氨肥

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2022.140959
• 发表时间: 2022-12-01
• 期刊: Chemical Engineering Journal
• 影响因子: 15.1
• 作者: Ning Shi;Jianan Gao;Kai Li;Yifan Li;Wen Zhang;Qipeng Yang;Bo Jiang
• 通讯作者: Bo Jiang