SEES Fellows: Enabling Energy Efficiency through Integrated Utilities - Technical and Social Challenges to Forward Osmosis Microbial Bioreactors

可持续城市设计的一个基本特征是通过有效地交换“废物”流来最大化资源生产率。正向渗透微生物生物反应器(FOMBR)是一种新型的水回用技术，具有缓解能源与水资源之间日益紧张的潜力。FOMBR不是将能源与水分离，而是将能源生产、废水处理和饮用水净化过程整合在一种共生的副产品交换中。该项目将探讨FOMBR实施的技术和社会挑战。工程/材料相关的努力将利用材料科学的进步来缓解用于废水回用的前向渗透系统中的膜生物污染。将比较具有不同物理化学性质的接枝聚合物涂层，并将表征膜与正在形成的生物膜之间的相互作用。将在FOMBR中试装置上对以色列本古里安大学校园的市政污水进行可行性测试和膜性能分析。该项目还将以三级方式解决阻碍FOMBR实施的城市基础设施、经济、监管和社会政治障碍。第一级将采用产业生态和经济模型，包括地理信息学、成本效益分析、社会网络分析和系统动力学，以确定鼓励公用事业公司之间副产品转移的政策。第二层将子模型集成到一个通用的描述性系统动力学模型中，并确定策略部署场景以加快FOMBR的实施。第三级将系统研究应用于城市案例研究，以评估离散条件下的政策有效性。该项目由NSF科学、工程和教育促进可持续发展研究员(SEE FERLOS)计划支持，目标是帮助实现必要的发现，为导致环境、能源和社会可持续发展的行动提供信息，同时培养必要的劳动力来应对这些挑战。在SEES研究员的支持下，该项目将使有前途的早期职业研究人员能够在与可持续发展相关的独立研究生涯中站稳脚跟。

An essential feature of sustainable urban design is the maximization of resource productivity through efficient exchange of "waste" streams. Forward Osmosis Microbial Bioreactors (FOMBRs) are a novel water reuse technology with the potential to alleviate the growing tension between energy and water resources. Rather than decoupling energy from water, FOMBRs integrate the processes of energy production, wastewater treatment, and drinking water purification in a symbiotic exchange of material byproducts. This project will probe the technical and social challenges to FOMBR implementation.The engineering/materials-related effort will leverage advances in materials science to alleviate membrane biofouling in Forward Osmosis systems for wastewater reuse. Grafted polymeric coatings with different physicochemical properties will be compared, and the interaction between membranes and developing biofilms will be characterized. Feasibility tests and analysis of membrane performance will be carried out on a FOMBR pilot treating municipal sewage from the Ben-Gurion University campus in Israel. The project will also address the urban infrastructure, economic, regulatory, and sociopolitical barriers to FOMBR implementation in a three-tiered approach. Tier one will employ industrial ecology and economic models, including geoinformatics, cost-benefit analysis, social network analysis, and system dynamics, to identify policies that incentivize byproduct transfer among utilities. Tier two integrates sub-models into a generically descriptive system dynamics model and identifies policy deployment scenarios to accelerate FOMBR implementation. Tier three applies systems research in an urban case study to evaluate policy validity under discrete conditions. This project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. With SEES Fellows support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish themselves in an independent research career related to sustainability.