I-Corp: Surface Engineered Iron Particles for Enhanced Degradation of Chlorinated Contaminants in Groundwater

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The broader impact of this project is to understand the market driving force for a process-based technology to increase the efficacy of remediating chlorinated solvent-contaminated underground environment. Degradation of chlorinated solvents using earth-abundant minerals or metallic reagent is a topic of immense interest due to the prevalent presence of these solvent contaminants at hazardous waste sites and their recalcitrance to natural degradation. More effective and cost-efficient technologies to clean up these sites can generate societal benefits including decreasing the costs of remediation, accelerating the process of restoring land for re-development, and protecting human health and ecological well-being. This project will allow the project team to discover customer segments, identify key attributes of commercially successful remediation methods, and translate research outcomes to products that have commercial competitiveness and are amenable to large-scale implementation.This I-Corps project further develops fundamental understanding of reductive decomposition of chlorinated ethenes on reactive engineered surfaces. While the main research project seeks to explore the potential of adapting the surface properties of engineered materials to create highly reactive and selective surfaces for groundwater decontamination, this project aims to translate the research findings into prototype products or process-based technologies that have relevance to the practical needs of the remediation market and are commercially competitive against the existing remediation methods. This exploratory effort is aligned with the overall goal of advancing science to address the formidable challenges posed by groundwater contamination.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.