Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Water sources are the key to existence of our civilization. As population growth, urbanization, and climate change continue to impact natural water resources, public water supplies are becoming stressed and impaired, necessitating the development of new strategies to meet future water demands. Wastewater reuse is one emerging strategy where the community's wastewater is recycled and used for various applications, including a source of drinking water. Considering the vast abundance of wastewater resources, planned reuse has recently gained interest in some parts of the world. However, reuse applications, especially potable reuse, require advanced treatment processes since the wastewater consists of a range of contaminants that must be removed for reuse applications or when the treated water is to be discharged to environmentally sensitive areas. Of particular concern are residual levels of organic and inorganic micropollutants, whose environmental and health impacts are just being realized. An example includes per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) which originate from food containers, non-stick pans, and firefighting foams, and are regulated with immediate action under different guidelines in the United States and in Canada. The long term goal of my research program is to continue addressing the fundamental challenges associated with water quality, through the development and implementation of advanced, robust, and simple to operate treatment technologies. In the short term, this program aims to research, develop and optimize processes capable of effectively removing emerging micropollutants such as PFASs from impaired or recycled water, intended for reuse applications. More specifically, this program will focus on extending the pioneering work conducted in our laboratory towards further developing ion exchange (IEX) as well as photochemically assisted advanced oxidation / reduction processes using emerging sources of UV (e.g., Vacuum UV and Microplasma UV) for effective degradation of the target micropollutants. The objectives of this research will be achieved through extensive laboratory experiments conducted using bench scale IEX and UV reactors, along with modeling and theoretical analyses. The results will be further validated in pilot scale setups under real world operating conditions. Pilot studies will be carried out in collaboration with local utilities and several industrial partners with whom we have had long collaboration. By being involved closely in the research, the industry will have a head start on the knowledge gained through the work conducted by our team. Besides, graduate and undergraduate students, through involvement in this transformative research, will gain the knowledge and skills essential to addressing emerging water quality and treatment challenges and to protecting the environment and human health, as well as leading in an emerging area of critical importance for the sustainability of water resources.