NSF Engines: Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine

美国国家科学基金会引擎奖授予大湖水创新引擎，将通过围绕废物转化为财富和健康概念的研究、翻译和劳动力活动，提高我国在循环水经济方面的创新能力。NSF引擎将发现、开发和部署创新的可行技术，以(1)在保持环境健康的同时吸引水密集型制造商到大湖地区；(2)从废水流中回收有价值的资源（如能源、关键矿物质和营养物质）并将其转化为财富；3)创建一个创新生态系统，为人民和社区，特别是那些最需要经济机会的人，促进就业、所有权和财富创造机会。NSF引擎的初始服务区域横跨三个州——伊利诺斯州、俄亥俄州和威斯康辛州——包括芝加哥、克利夫兰和密尔沃基在内的几个锚点作为头两年的优先影响区域。NSF引擎将由总部位于美国的非营利组织Current Innovation NFP领导。NSF引擎建立了一个强大的生态系统，包括来自制造业和能源部门、国家实验室和大学（包括公立和私立四年制和两年制机构）、经济和劳动力发展组织、创业支持组织、非营利组织、慈善机构和投资公司的核心合作伙伴，这些对NSF引擎的成功至关重要。这种多样化的合作伙伴联盟将是研发、翻译和劳动力发展工作的核心。NSF引擎的愿景是在水质方面将“废物转化为财富和健康”。具体来说，这意味着从水和废水中回收能量、营养物质、淡水和关键矿物质，以获得经济价值，并从水中去除新出现的污染物，如PFAS（广泛使用的化学物质，随着时间的推移分解非常缓慢，并与人类和动物的有害健康影响有关），以保护人类健康。NSF引擎有三个核心功能领域：(1)基于使用的研究与开发（R&amp；D）；(2)翻译与合作（翻译）；(3)包容性生态系统（生态系统），每个生态系统本身都解决了实现愿景必须克服的一个或多个关键障碍。五大湖水创新引擎的研发和翻译工作将集中在以下挑战上：挑战一将带来新的材料平台，用于从废水和相关废物流中有效和选择性地分离有价值的资源和污染物（例如，PFAS）；挑战二将带来新兴的工艺技术，以促进从各种水源中回收能源和关键矿物；挑战3将提供用于实时传感、监测和检测的传感器和传感器网络，以支持前两个挑战中所需的可持续和经济上可行的过程。NSF引擎建立在学术界、政府、工业和公用事业最终用户之间强大而不断发展的合作伙伴关系的基础上，旨在开发多种规模（实验、试点和完整）的智能水资源回收系统测试平台，以展示、集成和部署这些新技术，以支持该地区正在增长的可持续水密集型产业。NSF引擎还旨在发展电池生产和电气化等新兴行业所需材料的国内供应链。认识到水资源回收和循环水经济技术市场的相对不明确和不成熟的性质，NSF引擎将劳动力发展的努力集中在培训和教育项目上，旨在为未来的创新者、工人和企业家在循环水经济的新兴空间做好准备。NSF引擎将利用包容性生态系统工作组（Inclusive Ecosystem Work Group）作为管理机构，创建和实施符合NSF引擎技术目标的劳动力发展和STEM教育战略。该工作组由十多个地区基金会、家族办公室、社区组织和非营利组织参与，重点关注劳动力发展和创业投资。具体活动包括开发新的K-12课程，预学徒，学徒，工作/技能培训计划，高等教育课程，或其他需求，如NSF引擎的初始和持续差距分析得出的结论。NSF引擎汇集了强大的合作伙伴和核心职能联盟，这些合作伙伴和核心职能与区域资产和优先事项非常一致。领导团队已经确定了关键的研发主题领域和专业知识，以推动循环水创新，支持该地区可持续的水密集型制造业。通过NSF引擎建立的创新生态系统培养了可持续的人才发展和关键合作伙伴的集体发现，从而创造了将创新转化为循环水经济影响的连接途径。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。

This NSF Engines award to the Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine will advance our nation’s capacity for innovations in the circular water economy through research, translation, and workforce activities centered around the concept of waste-to-wealth-and-health. The NSF Engine will discover, develop, and deploy innovative viable technologies that (1) attract water-intensive manufacturers to the Great Lakes region while maintaining environmental health; (2) recover valuable resources (like energy, critical minerals and nutrients) from wastewater streams and convert them to wealth; and 3) create an innovation ecosystem to foster employment, ownership, and wealth-building opportunities for people and communities, especially those most in need of economic opportunity.The NSF Engine has an initial region of service that spans three states – Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin – with several anchor points including Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee as priority areas of impact for the first two years. The NSF Engine will be led by Current Innovation NFP, a U.S.-based non-profit. The NSF Engine builds a strong ecosystem including core partners with representation from the manufacturing and energy sectors, national labs and universities (including public and private four-year institutions and two-year institutions), economic and workforce development organizations, entrepreneurship support organizations, non-profits, philanthropies and investment firms that are essential to the NSF Engine’s success. This diverse coalition of partners will be central to R&D, translation, and workforce development efforts.The vision of the NSF Engine is to transform “waste to wealth and health” in the context of water quality. Specifically, this means recovering energy, nutrients, freshwater, and critical minerals from water and wastewater for economic value and removing emerging contaminants such as PFAS— widely used chemicals that break down very slowly over time and have been linked to harmful health effects in human and animals— from water to protect human health. The NSF Engine has three core functional areas: (1) Use-Inspired Research and Development (R&D); (2) Translations and Partnerships (Translation); and (3) Inclusive Ecosystems (Ecosystems), each of which inherently addresses one or more key barriers that must be overcome to realize the vision.The Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine’s R&D and translation efforts will focus on the following challenges: Challenge 1 will lead to novel material platforms for efficient and selective separation of valuable resources and contaminants of emerging concern (e.g., PFAS) from wastewater and associated waste streams; Challenge 2 will result in emerging process technologies to advance recovery of energy and critical minerals from various water sources; and Challenge 3 will deliver sensors and sensor networks for real-time sensing, monitoring, and detection to support sustainable and economically viable processes needed in the first two challenges. Built on the NSF Engine’s strong and evolving partnerships across academia, government, and end users in industry and utilities, this NSF Engine aims to develop intelligent water resource recovery systems testbeds at multiple scales (bench, pilot, and full) to demonstrate, integrate, and deploy these novel technologies to support sustainable water-intensive industry that is growing in this region. The NSF Engine also aims to develop domestic supply chains for materials essential to growing industries like battery production and electrification.Recognizing the relatively undefined and immature nature of the markets for water resource recovery and circular water economy technologies, the NSF Engine centers the workforce development efforts around training and education programs aimed at preparing future innovators, workers, and entrepreneurs in the emerging space of a circular water economy. The NSF Engine will leverage the Inclusive Ecosystem Work Group, which engages more than a dozen regional foundations, family offices, community organizations and nonprofits with workforce development and entrepreneurship investment priorities, as a governing body to create and implement a workforce development and STEM education strategy that aligns with the NSF Engine’s technical goals. Specific activities include developing new K-12 curriculum, pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, job/skills training programs, higher education curriculum, or other needs as the NSF Engine’s initial and continuous gap analysis concludes.This NSF Engine brings together a strong coalition of partners and core functions that are in excellent alignment with regional assets and priorities. The leadership team has identified critical R&D topic areas and expertise to drive circular water innovations to support sustainable water-intensive manufacturing industry in the region. The innovation ecosystem built through this NSF Engine cultivates sustainable talent development and collective discoveries across critical partners, which creates connected pathways that translate innovation to impact in the circular water economy.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.