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

该项目的更广泛影响是了解基于工艺的技术的市场驱动力，以提高修复受氯化溶剂污染的地下环境的功效。利用地球上丰富的矿物或金属试剂降解氯化溶剂是一个非常感兴趣的话题，因为这些溶剂污染物在危险废物场地普遍存在，而且它们不容易自然降解。更有效和更具成本效益的技术来清理这些场地可以产生社会效益，包括降低补救成本，加快恢复土地重新开发的进程，保护人类健康和生态福祉。该项目将使项目团队能够发现客户群，确定商业上成功的补救方法的关键属性，并将研究成果转化为具有商业竞争力并适合大规模实施的产品。该I-Corps项目进一步发展了对活性工程表面上氯化乙烯还原分解的基本理解。虽然主要研究项目旨在探索改造工程材料表面特性的潜力，以创造用于地下水净化的高活性和选择性表面，但该项目旨在将研究成果转化为原型产品或基于工艺的技术，这些产品或技术与补救市场的实际需求相关，并在商业上与现有补救方法竞争。这一探索性的努力与推进科学以应对地下水污染所带来的巨大挑战的总体目标相一致。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.