PFI-TT: Industrial scale production of high-performance, in-home water filters to protect public health from lead and arsenic in drinking water.

这一创新伙伴关系-技术转化项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将有助于改善获得安全可靠的饮用水的机会，确保在使用或消费的地方获得安全和健康的水。提议的纳米技术支持的水过滤技术为饮用水污染物，如铅和砷，提供了一种独特的解决方案，作为家庭或使用点（POU）技术。该技术可用于不受监管的供水，如私人饮用水井，那里的水通常很少或根本没有处理；日托中心、学校、办公室和其他广泛使用喷泉和起泡器的场所；或淡水资源有限的情况下，如自然灾害或人道主义任务。拟议的项目将推进纳米技术支持的水处理设备的应用规模。该项目将(i)扩大静电纺丝工艺，以制造集成到POU处理设备所需尺寸的纳米纤维膜片；（ii）将这些纳米纤维膜片集成到原型POU处理平台中，以证明易于安装、使用和维护；（iii）在典型的消费品认证条件下验证设备去除铅和砷。这些复合纳米纤维滤水器是创新的，因为它们(i)简单，高度可调的合成方法；（ii）更高的外表面积（而不是内部孔隙率），能够快速、非扩散地去除目标；（iii）可扩展性，实现跨一系列最终用户的应用；（iv）离子交换和吸附剂位点共集成而产生的多功能性。这项技术的变革性方面涉及到我们利用合成工艺来创造具有协同性能特征的多功能纳米结构材料的能力；该技术依靠简单的“一锅”静电纺丝合成来创建一个强大的平台，该平台表面富含多种结合剂，用于金属捕获。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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/commercial potential of this Partnership for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project will help to improve access to safe and reliable drinking water supplies by ensuring safe and healthy water at the point where it is used or consumed. The proposed nanotechnology-enabled water filter technology provides a unique solution to drinking water pollutants, such as lead and arsenic, as an in-home or point-of-use (POU) technology. The technology could be used for unregulated water supplies like private drinking water wells, where water is often consumed with little to no treatment; day care centers, schools, offices, and other settings with extensive use of fountains and bubblers; or circumstances with limited freshwater resources, such as natural disasters or humanitarian missions.The proposed project will advance nanotechnology-enabled water treatment devices toward application scale. The project will (i) scale up electrospinning processes to fabricate nanofiber membrane sheets of dimensions necessary for integration into POU treatment devices; (ii) integrate these nanofiber membrane sheets into prototype POU treatment platforms to demonstrate ease of installation, use, and maintenance; and (iii) validate the device for removal of lead and arsenic under conditions typical of consumer product certification. These composite nanofiber water filters are innovative because of their (i) simple, highly tunable synthetic approach; (ii) higher external surface area (rather than internal porosity) enabling fast, non-diffusion limited rates of target removal; (iii) scalability, enabling application across a range of end users; and (iv) multi-functionality derived from co-integrated ion exchange and sorbent sites. The transformative aspect of this technology relates to our ability to exploit synthesis processes to create multi-functional, nanostructured materials with synergistic performance characteristics; the technology relies on a simple “one-pot” electrospinning synthesis for creation of a robust platform that is surface-enriched with multiple binding agents for metal capture.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.