EFRI-SEED: Solar Optics-based Active Pasteurization (SOAP) for Greywater Reuse and Integrated Thermal (GRIT) Building Control

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The objective of this EFRI-SEED project is to produce transformative science with unforeseen opportunities for the design of next-generation sustainable building technologies, as well as, of micro optics and fluids networks innovation. SOAP GRIT Building Control will constitute the first building system for greywater disinfection coupled with thermal storage and energy management from solar energy. The researchers aim to establish new technologies for selection of light and heat flow transmission/conduction based on microoptics that can supplant current research developments that deploy thicker, heavier and often pricey mechanical lens systems. By integrating advances in biologically-inspired photonics and optofluidics technologies from bioengineering for light control and waste processing at microscale into buildings systems, new thresholds of water and energy expenditure reduction and management can be accomplished. Likewise, the knowledge obtained from SOAP GRIT Building Control will provide the civil and bioengineering community with valuable performance criteria of micro-optics based technology for integrating thermal control and disinfection derived from solar energy. The interdisciplinary nature of this research will contribute to widen the scope of beneficiaries while demonstrating that new interdisciplinary collaborations for sustainable architecture models can accelerate the development of energy efficient building technologies through unconsidered scales of action. The successful completion of this research will stimulate a number of studies of energy efficient integrated building systems nation-wide. This research will contribute to develop courses for the new minor in biomimicry/sustainable architecture at UC Berkeley's architecture undergraduate program. The topic of next-generation sustainable architecture is attractive to younger students and underrepresented minorities, including K12, which will be involved in this proposal through a summer program in collaboration with architect Tom McKeag, director of BioDreamMachine, a California non-profit educational institution dedicated to bringing the benefits of bio-inspired design to K12 public education.The FY 2010 EFRI-SEED Topic that supports this project was sponsored by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG), Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), and Computer & Information Science and Engineering in collaboration with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).