Electrochemical Wastewater Refining: Using Reactive Separations to Control Microenvironments and Valorize Pollutants

Bio: Dr. William Tarpeh is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University. The Tarpeh Lab uses catalysis and separations to advance wastewater refining, which generates tunable portfolios of products from water pollutants. In addition to improving mechanistic understanding of novel materials and processes, the group also advances wastewater treatment in resource-constrained communities to improve access to water, fertilizers, and chemical commodities. Will completed his B.S. in chemical engineering at Stanford, his M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, and postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan. His recent awards include the NSF CAREER Award, Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, AIChE 35 Under 35 and the Environmental Division Early Career Award, and the Electrochemical Society Young Investigator Fellowship.

Abstract: 

Over the past century, humans have altered the global nitrogen cycle so drastically that managing nitrogen has emerged as a grand engineering challenge and urgent need. The emissions-intensive Haber-Bosch process for industrial fertilizer production, which converts nitrogen gas into ammonia, outpaces wastewater nitrogen removal due to fertilizer runoff and 80% of wastewater being discharged without treatment. Refining nitrate and ammonia into valuable products through reactive separations, which integrate catalysis and separations, is a useful approach for addressing both water pollution and chemical manufacturing. For example, selective membranes and adsorbents can be leveraged to control catalytic performance by tuning microenvironments near catalyst active sites. This seminar will focus on recent work designing nitrogen-selective processes, materials, and molecular mechanisms to systematically probe and valorize real wastewaters.