Sustainable Drinking Water Adsorptive Materials for Arsenic and Fluoride Removal in Emerging Regions

用于新兴地区除砷和氟化物的可持续饮用水吸附材料

• 批准号: 1066425
• 负责人: David Sabatini
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: University of Oklahoma Norman Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2015-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1066425&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Sustainable; Drinking; Water; Adsorptive; Materials

1066425 Sabatini There is a global water crisis, as the United Nations University estimates that approximately 900 million people (nearly a seventh of the world's population) currently lack access to potable water. Naturally occurring contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride contribute to this crisis, causing severe health problems above World Health Organization (WHO) recommended levels. Treatment of arsenicand fluoride contaminated waters is especially challenging in the developing world since over 1.4 billionpeople live on less than $1.25 per day according to the WHO. Commercial water treatment materialsused for arsenic and fluoride treatment in the U.S. are expensive even by U.S. standards, putting them outof reach for remote villagers in low income countries. A great challenge thus exists to develop materialsthat approach the efficiency of commercial materials for arsenic and fluoride removal from drinking watersupplies, but that are much less expensive and that, ideally, are produced in the developing country. Anequal challenge is to develop materials that are sustainable in terms of both environmental impacts acrossthe life cycle and adoption and long term implementation in country.Intellectual Merit. The overall objective of this research is to utilize colloid and surfacechemistry principles to produce effective and sustainable water treatment materials for arsenic andfluoride removal in developing countries. Currently available materials suffer from high cost (e.g.,granular ferric oxide and activated alumina) or poor sorption capacity due to low surface area (e.g., ironcoated sand). To address these challenges, high surface area chars will be generated from organicbiomass (locally available plants and trees) and coated with iron and aluminum minerals that have highaffinities for arsenic and fluoride, thereby producing adsorbents with both high surface areas and highsorption affinities. Mineral coated chars will be characterized with respect to the size and distribution ofmineral particles in the chars, and the depth of penetration of mineral particles into char pores. Theseproperties will then be correlated with sorption performance. Batch and column sorption studies withmineral coated chars will be conducted, both in the presence and absence of potential competing anions,in order to identify those with the greatest sorption affinity for arsenic and fluoride under realisticconditions. Desorption and leaching studies will also be conducted to evaluate the suitability ofregeneration or permanent landfill disposal of spent mineral coated chars. These laboratory experimentswill be followed by comparative evaluation of the most promising mineral coated chars in terms ofenvironmental impacts across the life cycle using life cycle assessment, and development of a sustainableimplementation plan for local adoption of these materials using the principles of social entrepreneurship.The last component of the proposed work is to test, in collaboration with non-governmental organizationsand Dr. Feleke Zewge at the University of Addis Ababa, the most promising mineral coated chars forfluoride removal in a rural village in Ethiopia impacted by high fluoride in its water supply.Broader Impacts. The results of this research will be disseminated to the scientificcommunity through publications in refereed journals and to several governmental and non-governmentalorganizations. Research results will also be integrated into two senior/graduate engineering classes, aninterdisciplinary undergraduate honors class on water and sanitation in remote villages of developingcountries, and a business course focused on social entrepreneurship. Research students will presentpapers and undergraduate students in the multidisciplinary honors class will present posters at the biennialUniversity of Oklahoma (OU) International WaTER conference in order to further disseminate the resultsamong the international community of researchers and practitioners. Educational materials developed forthese classes will be submitted to the K-Gray Engineering Pathway Digital Library (a national repositoryfor K-gray educational materials in science and engineering) and their public availability to othereducators will be advertised widely. This research topic is popular for undergraduates, and, based onexperience at OU, attractive to underrepresented groups in science and engineering. By improving healthin the most impoverished regions of the world, the research results will enable education and developmentin regions historically plagued with unrest. Finally, developing novel water treatment materials andevaluating their use in terms of both adsorption efficiency and economic and environmental sustainability will lead to new applications appropriate not only for the developing world, but for the U.S. as well.This award is co-funded by the CBET/ENG Environmental Sustainability and Chemical and Biological Separations programs, and the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.

据联合国大学估计，目前全球约有9亿人（占世界人口的近七分之一）缺乏饮用水，这是一场全球性的水危机。砷和氟化物等自然存在的污染物助长了这一危机，造成严重的健康问题，超出了世界卫生组织（世卫组织）建议的水平。根据世界卫生组织的数据，在发展中国家，处理受砷和氟污染的水尤其具有挑战性，因为超过14亿人每天的生活费不到1.25美元。在美国，用于砷和氟处理的商业水处理材料即使按照美国的标准也是昂贵的，这使得低收入国家偏远地区的村民买不起。因此，要想开发出一种材料，使其在去除饮用水中砷和氟化物方面的效率接近商业材料，但要便宜得多，而且最好是在发展中国家生产，这是一项巨大的挑战。同样的挑战是开发在整个生命周期对环境的影响以及在国家的采用和长期实施方面具有可持续性的材料。知识价值。这项研究的总体目标是利用胶体和表面化学原理为发展中国家的除砷除氟生产有效和可持续的水处理材料。目前可用的材料成本高（例如，颗粒状氧化铁和活性氧化铝）或由于表面积小而吸附能力差（例如，铁涂层砂）。为了应对这些挑战，将用有机生物质（当地可获得的植物和树木）生产高表面积木炭，并涂上对砷和氟化物具有高亲和力的铁和铝矿物，从而生产出具有高表面积和高吸附亲和力的吸附剂。矿物包覆炭的特征在于炭中矿物颗粒的大小和分布，以及矿物颗粒渗透到炭孔中的深度。然后将这些特性与吸附性能相关联。在存在和不存在潜在竞争阴离子的情况下，将进行矿物包覆炭的批状和柱状吸附研究，以确定在实际条件下对砷和氟的吸附亲和力最大的那些。还将进行解吸和浸出研究，以评估再生或永久填埋处置废矿物包覆炭的适用性。在这些实验室实验之后，将利用生命周期评估对最有前途的矿物包覆炭在整个生命周期内的环境影响进行比较评估，并利用社会企业家精神的原则制定当地采用这些材料的可持续实施计划。拟议工作的最后一个组成部分是与非政府组织和亚的斯亚贝巴大学的felek Zewge博士合作，在埃塞俄比亚一个受高氟化物供水影响的农村测试最有前途的除氟矿物包覆炭。更广泛的影响。这项研究的结果将通过期刊出版物以及若干政府和非政府组织向科学界传播。研究成果还将被纳入两门高级/研究生工程课程，一门关于发展中国家偏远村庄水与卫生的跨学科本科荣誉课程，以及一门以社会创业为重点的商业课程。在两年一度的俄克拉荷马大学（OU）国际水会议上，研究生将发表论文，多学科荣誉班的本科生将展示海报，以便在国际研究人员和实践者中进一步传播研究成果。为这些课程开发的教育材料将提交给K-Gray工程路径数字图书馆（K-Gray科学和工程教育材料的国家资源库），其他教育工作者将广泛宣传这些材料的公开可用性。这个研究课题在本科生中很受欢迎，而且根据公开大学的经验，对科学和工程领域代表性不足的群体很有吸引力。通过改善世界上最贫困地区的健康状况，研究成果将促进历史上动荡不安地区的教育和发展。最后，开发新型水处理材料，并从吸附效率、经济和环境可持续性两方面对其用途进行评估，将导致不仅适用于发展中国家，也适用于美国的新应用。该奖项由CBET/ENG环境可持续性和化学与生物分离项目以及NSF国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。