EAR-PF: The optimization of SPC-POU filter and its application of well water treatment within Indigenous lands.

NSF博士后研究金授予Ranalda Tsosie博士，在Ellen Lauchnor博士和Mari Eggers博士的指导下，在蒙大拿州立大学开展研究、教学和专业发展经验。PI将与三个社区合作，解决砷污染问题。其中两个社区位于土著土地上，即纳瓦霍和克劳保留地，第三个社区位于蒙大拿州的一个农村社区。拟议的研究将集中在蒙大拿州家庭中正在进行的私人水井砷污染问题和纳瓦霍保留区不受管制的水源的污染问题。具体而言，拟议的使用启发研究将确定砷的种类，并测试成本效益和商业上可用的除砷过滤器。第二个目标是优化目前的原型二氧化硅聚胺复合材料的使用点过滤器（SPC-POU）的设计，由Tsosie博士在她的论文研究在蒙大拿大学。这项研究将推进砷修复的知识，并开发一种解决砷污染的创新方法。砷已被广泛研究，并已投入大量精力开发更具成本效益的补救方法。尽管所有这些努力，美国各地的许多家庭继续面临饮用水中砷含量的问题。这项研究旨在通过与蒙大拿州无法获得公共监控供水的家庭合作来解决这些问题。此外，在纳瓦霍保留地，有些家庭家中没有自来水，必须依靠不受管制的水源满足家庭用水需求。正是这样的社区/家庭，这项研究将是最有影响力的。该项目由地球科学部和刺激竞争性研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。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。

An NSF EAR Postdoctoral fellowship was awarded to Dr. Ranalda Tsosie to carry out a research, teaching and professional development experience at Montana State University under the mentorship of Dr. Ellen Lauchnor and Dr. Mari Eggers. The PI will engage with three communities to address arsenic contamination issues. Two of these communities are located on Indigenous lands, the Navajo and Crow reservations, and the third community is in a rural community in the state of Montana. The proposed research will focus on the ongoing private well arsenic contamination issues in households in Montana and the contamination issues of unregulated water sources located on the Navajo reservation. Specifically, the proposed use-inspired research will determine the species of arsenic and test cost effective and commercially available arsenic removal filters. A second objective is to optimize the design of a current prototype of silica polyamine composite based point of use filter (SPC-POU) developed by Dr. Tsosie during her dissertation research at the University of Montana. This research will advance the knowledge of arsenic remediation and develop an innovative method of addressing arsenic contamination. Arsenic has been studied extensively and much effort has gone into developing more cost-effective methods of remediation. Despite all these efforts, many households throughout the U.S. continue to face issues with arsenic exceedance in their drinking water. This research aims to tackle these issues by working with these households in Montana that do not have access to a publicly monitored water supply. In addition, on the Navajo reservation there are some households that do not have running water in their homes and must rely on unregulated water sources for their household water needs. It is communities/households like these, that this research will be the most impactful.This project is jointly funded by the Division of Earth Sciences and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.