The United Nations estimates that more than 2.2 billion people live without access to safe drinking water. The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago is tackling this critical issue with innovative research through its Materials Systems for Sustainability theme. Organized by themes, rather than departments, UChicago’s engineering school pulls from 8+ science and engineering disciplines to examine some of humanity’s biggest challenge from an interdisciplinary perspective, working with others to create viable solutions.
In honor of World Water Day on March 22, read more about PME’s latest water research:
UChicago engineer driving key role in Great Lakes water transformation
The Chicago-based Great Lakes ReNEW coalition has been awarded one of the largest climate awards in the city’s history – up to $160 million over 10 years as one of the inaugural U.S. National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines. The award will be used in part to recycle used water, creating a clean water resource, and also to transform filtered-out waste metals into new types of batteries that help power the nation’s switch to clean energy. The initial service area will be Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, but over the collaborative agreement’s 10-year run, it will expand to Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana. “Water is needed everywhere for daily life. For manufacturing in particular, it is critical to our economic prosperity. But water is limited in supply, especially freshwater,” said Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Prof. Junhong Chen, the co-Principal Investigator and Use-Inspired R&D Lead for Great Lakes ReNEW. “The only way to get us out of this challenge is to be able to recycle and reuse the water.”
Pritzker Molecular Engineering, IBM pilot program to help target pollution hot spots in India
Water-to-Cloud, a mobile sensor platform-based measurement and mapping technique developed by Pritzker Molecular Engineering Professor Supratik Guha and his team, is changing the way India targets sources of water pollution. Once inserted into the water, these GPS enabled sensors platforms are capable of collecting real-time geo-tagged data on water quality which can then be uploaded to the cloud, providing a significant advantage over the “grab sampling” that collects samples to send to labs for analysis. The project also involves an innovated data visualization scheme, pairing years of data collected along Indian rivers by PME students and the UChicago Trust in India with maps and images of the areas. The University of Chicago Trust and IBM recently announced their collaboration to scale the initiative through the IBM Sustainability Accelerator.
Research into extracting lithium from water earns Sloan Fellowship
Extracting lithium, whether from Australian mines, Chilean brine pools or clay deposits underneath Nevada, is a slow, expensive and environmentally damaging process. But the batteries powering everything from smartphones to energy storage for wind farms and solar fields demand the metallic element. UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Asst. Prof. Chong Liu is looking for a better way. Her innovative approaches for extracting dilute ions from water to obtain lithium or rare earth elements recently earned the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor a prestigious Sloan Foundation Fellowship. “I plan to use these funds to continue my current research on understanding the physical and chemical processes at solid-liquid interfaces for sustainable separation,” Liu said.
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Read more about PME’s Materials Systems for Sustainability theme
