STTR Phase I: Development of a tablet to destroy viruses, bacteria, and protozoa in stored household water

这个小企业技术转让研究第一阶段项目将解决向全球人口提供安全用水的问题。 在高收入国家，高质量的饮用水是通过集中的水处理/分配系统提供的。 对于低收入国家的20亿至30亿人来说，清洁饮用水并不能保证。 他们必须收集和储存家庭用水，通常是在没有消毒剂的开放容器中。 这些缺陷的后果包括消费不安全的水，导致与水有关的疾病的高发病率和死亡率。 世界卫生组织（世卫组织）指出，解决这一问题的一个可能办法是分散水处理，使人们在家中用水之前就对其进行处理（例如使用点水处理）。 然而，设计使用点水处理技术是一个具有挑战性的问题，需要产品在技术上有效，使用简单，价格低廉，社会可接受。 该项目将开发一种用于使用点水处理的颠覆性技术，并将满足这些严格的设计标准。 该技术有可能改善水质，人类健康，以及世界各地数百万人的生活质量，同时雇用美国公民制造和销售该产品。该项目旨在开发和测试方法，将金属铜和N-卤胺涂层应用于低收入国家家庭用水净化的多孔陶瓷片表面。 由此产生的片剂将有效地消毒病毒，细菌和原生动物在10-20升储存的家庭用水一年（超过7000升），成本低于0.3美分每升。 铜盐溶液经高温加热还原，形成金属铜的微观团簇。 当添加到水中时，铜将氧化以释放铜离子到溶液中以引起病原体消毒。该组件将与现有技术相结合，从多孔陶瓷片中释放银离子。 这些消毒剂的协同效应可能使世界卫生组织的1-3-星星认证成为可能。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。

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research Phase I project will address the provision of safe water to our global population. In high income nations, high-quality drinking water is provided through centralized water-treatment/distribution systems. For 2-3 billion people in lower income countries, clean drinking water is not a guarantee. They must collect and store household water, often in open containers without disinfectant. The consequences of these deficiencies include the consumption of unsafe water that leads to high rates of morbidity and mortality from water-related diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated that one possible solution to this problem is to decentralize water treatment so that people treat their water right before they consume it in their homes (e.g. point-of-use water treatment). However, designing point-of-use water treatment technologies is a challenging problem that requires the product to be technologically effective, simple to use, inexpensive, and socially acceptable. This project will develop a disruptive technology for point-of-use water treatment and will meet these rigorous design criteria. The technology has the potential to improve water quality, human health, and quality of life for millions of people around the world while employing US citizens for manufacturing and sales of the product.This project seeks to develop and test methods to apply metallic copper and an N-halamine coating to the surface of a porous ceramic tablet for household water purification in lower income countries. The resulting tablet will effectively disinfect viruses, bacteria, and protozoa in 10-20 liters of stored household water for one year (over 7000 liters total) with a cost of less than 0.3 cents per liter. Copper salt solution will be reduced through high-temperature heating to form microscopic clusters of metallic copper. When added to water, the copper will oxidize to release copper ions into solution to cause pathogen disinfection. This component will be combined with an existing technology that releases silver ions from a porous ceramic tablet. The synergistic effects of these disinfectants may enable 1-3-star certification from the World Health Organization.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.