Research
Center research is organized in Interdisciplinary CAMPWS Teams (ICTs) to address the three major objectives identified for water purification by The WaterCAMPWS, NAS, Sandia, and EPA. The three ICTs are: Desalination/Reuse, Decontamination, and Disinfection. Each ICT has 4 components, science, materials synthesis, systems integration, and human resource development, that are directed towards achieving the stated goals. The ICTs are focused on solving the major problems, with smaller team interactions within each ICT. Each ICT has technical and scientific objectives to work towards, with stretch goals as a vector to shoot for. Stretch goals are goals that are not considered possible with current technology or with incremental advancements. The time frame for stretch goals is expected to be more than a decade. The plans developed will aim towards these long-range goals, building the science base and shorter-range technology to achieve them.
Please select the ICT links in the menu for a detailed discussion of each ICT. Concisely, the ICT’s are:
ICT I: Desalination/Reuse
Increase drinking water supplies, to gain new waters from reuse and desalination from the "sea to sink to the sea again." Co-Leaders: John Georgiadis and Menachem Elimelech . This ICT focuses on materials, methods, and systems to improve the efficiency of desalination and reclamation of water for human use. Topics include interfacial behavior of aqueous constituents and materials, fundamentals of transport, energetics and thermodynamics, materials synthesis, and biological processes. There are three concentration areas in ICT I:
I-A: Thermal Desalination and Liquid Discharge Minimization Methods
I-B: Pressure-driven and Electrokinetic Membrane Water Filtration
I-C: Organic and Microbial Biofouling
ICT II: Decontamination
Remove contaminants from all types of water sources, to get the "drop of poison out of an ocean of water." Co-Leaders: Yi Lu and Charlie Werth. This ICT focuses on selective adsorption, catalytic reduction, and oxidation of pollutants that are conventionally difficult to treat such as nitrate, perchlorate and arsenate, metal ions such as lead and mercury, and emerging pollutants such as disinfection by-products. There are two concentration areas in ICT II:
II-A: Design and synthesis of selective sensors and adsorption materials for trace contaminants based on fundamental understanding of water-pollutant-materials interactions across a range of length scales.
II-B: Selective catalytic destruction of difficult-to-treat oxyanions (nitrate and perchlorate) and persistent organic contaminants (halocarbons, antibiotics, NDMA, MTBE).
ICT III: Disinfection
Disinfect water from current and potentially emerging pathogens without producing toxic substances, to "beat chlorination." Co-Leaders: Benito Mari
III-A: Catalytic Control of Waterborne Pathogens, Disinfection By-Products, and Emerging Micropollutants and Development of Point-of-Use Systems
III-B: Control of Emerging Viral Pathogens with Photolytic, Photocatalytic and Synergistic Hybrid Photocatalytic/Chemical Disinfection Processes
The teams for each ICT are built from participants from all the partner institutions, and from all the disciplines represented in The WaterCAMPWS. There are no separate UIUC, or CAU, efforts or thrusts. Nor are the ICTs an assemblage of individual professor projects that was characteristic of the Thrusts. Each ICT incorporates all of The WaterCAMPWS participants in integrated research and HRD teams to address the specific goals above. Each ICT is lead by both a scientist and a water quality expert to more closely coordinate the science and technology efforts. Finally, each ICT has coordinated science, synthesis, and systems activities towards the stated objective of each ICT, as well as participation in the HRD activities.
