We are excited to announcement an award of funding the the Department of Defense –  Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program.  The project is titled “Pilot scale assessment of a deployable photocatalytic treatment system modified with bismuth phosphate catalyst particles for PFAS destruction in investigation-derived wastewaters.” A Purifics Photo-cat pilot system will be modified with catalysts developed in the Cates Lab and the system will be tested for treatment efficiency using groundwater samples from DoD airfield sites. Photocatalytic degradation of poly/perfluoroalkyl substances and other organic contaminants will be monitored, and related to influent water parameters. The project, led by Clemson, will be conducted in collaboration with Battelle, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Georgia Tech, and Purifics Water Inc.

In collaboration with Jaehong Kim and group members at Yale University, Sushant Sahu and Ezra Cates recently published experiments debunking the decade-old concept of visible-to-ultraviolet upconversion sensitized photocatalysis.  Read the abstract here:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b05941

As part of North Carolina State University’s Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering graduate seminar series, Dr. Cates gave a talk on radiation-based processes and materials for advanced water treatment technologies.

Brandy is a junior microbiology major at Clemson, and will serve as an undergraduate lab assistant in micro-related tasks.

Dr. Cates presented the group’s ongoing research on photocatalytic destruction of PFAS compounds at the IUVA World congress in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Mojtaba holds BS and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from Ferdosi University and Sharif University of Technology, respectively, in Iran. He joins the Cates Lab as a Ph.D. and will focus on materials and reactors for practical photocatalytic water treatment systems.

Matt Vawter completed his Masters degree in presenting his project “Development of microfiltration membrane cell for UVC dose-response studies, and determination of methods for prevention of membrane biofouling using UVC radiation”.

Kyle Pohle became the first Masters graduate of the Cates Lab after defending his research, titled “CHARACTERIZATION, SETTLING, AND RECOVERY OF BISMUTH PHOSPHATE PHOTOCATALYST”

IUVA News is the publication of the International Ultraviolet Society.  Learn more at iuva.org

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