Rice U develops system to remove water contaminants; Nidec appoints CEO; Woodard & Curran names business leader

Aug. 27, 2018

Industry news: Rice University engineers develop system to remove contaminants from water; Nidec Motor Corp. appoints CEO; Woodard & Curran names new business unit leader.

Rice University engineers develop system to remove contaminants from water

Engineer Qilin Li at Rice University’s lab is building a treatment system that can be tuned to selectively pull toxins from wastewater from factories, sewage systems and oil and gas wells, as well as drinking water. The researchers said their technology will cut costs and save energy compared to conventional systems.

"Traditional methods to remove everything, such as reverse osmosis, are expensive and energy intensive," said Li, the lead scientist and co-author of a study about the new technology in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology. "If we figure out a way to just fish out these minor components, we can save a lot of energy."

The heart of Rice’s system is a set of novel composite electrodes that enable capacitive deionization. The charged, porous electrodes selectively pull target ions from fluids passing through the maze-like system. When the pores get filled with toxins, the electrodes can be cleaned, restored to their original capacity and reused.

"This is part of a broad scope of research to figure out ways to selectively remove ionic contaminants," said Li, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of materials science and nanoengineering. "There are a lot of ions in water. Not everything is toxic. For example, sodium chloride (salt) is perfectly benign. We don’t have to remove it unless the concentration gets too high."

In tests, an engineered coating of resin, polymer and activated carbon removed and trapped harmful sulfate ions, and other coatings can be used in the same platform to target other contaminants. Illustration by Kuichang Zuo

The proof-of-principal system developed by Li’s team removed sulfate ions. The system’s electrodes were coated with activated carbon, which was in turn coated by a thin film of tiny resin particles held together by quaternized polyvinyl alcohol. When sulfate-contaminated water flowed through a channel between the charged electrodes, sulfate ions were attracted by the electrodes, passed through the resin coating and stuck to the carbon. Tests in the Rice lab showed the positively charged coating on the cathode preferentially captured sulfate ions over salt at a ratio of more than 20 to 1. The electrodes retained their properties over 50 cycles. "But in fact, in the lab, we’ve run the system for several hundred cycles and I don’t see any breaking or peeling of the material," said Kuichang Zuo, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher in Li’s lab. "It’s very robust."

In Rice’s new water-treatment platform, electrode coatings can be swapped out to allow the device to selectively remove a range of contaminants from wastewater, drinking water and industrial fluids. Illustration by Kuichang Zuo

"The true merit of this work is not that we were able to selectively remove sulfate, because there are many other contaminants that are perhaps more important," she said. "The merit is that we developed a technology platform that we can use to target other contaminants as well by varying the composition of the electrode coating."

The research was supported by the Rice-based National Science Foundation-backed Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, the Welch Foundation and the Shanghai Municipal International Cooperation Foundation.

Nidec Motor Corp. appoints CEO

Nidec Motor Corporation (NMC) named Henk van Duijnhoven as its CEO and global business leader of ACIM (Appliances, Commercial and Industrial Motors). Van Duijnhoven was most recently a partner and managing director of The Boston Consulting Group where he was responsible for business turnaround, mergers and acquisitions, and strategy planning for clients in the industrial and medtech markets. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the College of Automotive Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Woodard & Curran names new business unit leader

Woodard & Curran named Peter Nangeroni as its new industrial and commercial strategic business unit leader. He brings experience managing large, multidisciplinary projects for industrial clients with emphasis on generating positive environmental outcomes, return on investment and improved risk management. He has been with Woodard & Curran for 13 years in various roles, most recently as director of technical practices. He takes over for the long-time leader of the business unit, Mike Curato, who is retiring after 11 years in the role and 20 with the firm.

Nangeroni is a Professional Engineer with a degree in civil engineering from Tufts University and more than 35 years of experience working with clients on engineering and construction management projects. In his new role, he will oversee staffing, business development and project execution at a strategic level for the industrial and commercial strategic business unit, which focuses on water treatment, manufacturing and process utilities for clients in a wide range of industrial sectors.

Sponsored Recommendations

Meet the future of MV switchgear

SureSeT new-generation metal-clad. Smarter. Smaller. Stronger.

A digital circuit breaker built for the future

EvoPacT medium voltage digital vacuum circuit breaker

The New Generation of Intelligent MV Switchgear

Step into the future of electrical infrastructure with Intelligent MV Switchgear - where traditional equipment becomes smart, providing real-time data on critical components like...

Switchgear goes digital with SureSeT

Discover what you can do with Square D natively digital MV metal-clad switchgear.