RAPID-GOALI: Development of a Field-Deployable Net-Zero Water Wash Station for Remote Ebola Decontamination

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1519058EnglehardtTitle: RAPID-GOALI: Development of a Field-Deployable Net-Zero Water Wash Station for Remote Ebola DecontaminationA field-deployable, clean-water wash station emerged as a priority for Ebola response. The PI's group has recently demonstrated low-energy, low-emission, net-zero water reuse, converting comingled black and grey water to drinking water at a university residence hall. While such technology has not been feasible for remote field deployment due to operational complexity and energy demand, the advent of new, energy-efficient, low-maintenance, small, light microplasma ozone generation modules along with the emerging UV-ozone advanced oxidation make such a vision possible. Current advanced oxidation and membrane filtration technologies require chemical dosing or other operationally-intensive procedures, and/or disposal of a concentrate stream, making remote deployment impractical. However, emerging UV-ozone advanced oxidation technology, coupled with new, low-energy, low-maintenance microplasma ozone generation modules, offers promise of clean water production anywhere, at any time. Therefore, design principles for chemical? and maintenance-free remote production of clean water, with annual lamp replacement, occasional rainwater makeup, and no human wastewater contact will be developed. Principles will include the integration and sizing of UV-ozone, microplasma ozone generation, and low-maintenance separations, mixing, and hydraulic technologies. Knowledge of kinetics and mechanisms of UV-ozone soap/foam mineralization, and the critical science of microbial and Ebola viral inactivation, will be advanced. This project, will develop a field-deployable, UV-microplasma-ozone net-zero water wash station (NZWWS) for Ebola decontamination. Tasks include industry-collaborative design and prototype construction using technology and equipment from the PI's current NSF Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation project. Kinetic tests of soap/foam mineralization; and viral inactivation using Bacillus thuringensis spores, MS2 bacteriophage, and Cystoviridae as Ebolavirus surrogates by current EPA collaborators. Spartan Environmental Technologies, LLC expects to be in a position to manufacture units by late 2015. The project will include two industry seminars, and continued scientific training of under-represented populations, part of a team of 70 students to date, including 34 female, 1 African-American, and 14 Hispanic undergraduates and high school interns. Graduate students will supervise 1-4 ten-week high-school internships, over summer 2015. Finally, two students of CAE 542 Environmental Health and two students of CAE 540 Environmental Chemistry will collaborate on a term project involving kinetic testing of the operating prototype.