Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2015DC171B

A Novel Water Treatment Solution Using Hybrid Mesoporous Materials Embedded with Metallic Oxide Nanoparticle

Institute: District of Columbia
Year Established: 2015 Start Date: 2015-03-01 End Date: 2016-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $10,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $34,400

Principal Investigators: Xueqing Song

Project Summary: To restore and maintain the physical chemical and biological integrity of water bodies in the United States, there is an urgent need of developing effective and economical feasible solution for the prevention of contamination of water supplies caused by industrial wastes and storm water[1]. In the last decade, many new techniques and methodologies have been proposed to remedy wastewater which include using micro/nanostructured membrane/filtration, nanoparticle catalytic, and chemical reaction etc[1-12]. However, these methods are still evolving and often times, further cleaning/removal of the nanomaterials/surfactants added inside are needed which usually is time-consuming and expensive [4, 5, 12]. So the proposal research will explore and characterize a hybrid solution by integrating the nanoparticle catalytic into mesoporous material, which can take advantage of the greater surface area of nanostructure and save the trouble of post processing process needed. The broader goal of this research project is to assist in exploring a new artificial nanocomposite structure that can offer a path way to the development of engineered materials with novel macroscopic properties for a more feasible and efficient pollutants treatment solution. Our approach comprises two components: 1) Preparation of mesoporous material to be used as frame for nanoparticle deposition, and 2) Synthesis and encapsulate the metallic oxide nanoparticle to the mesoporous frame. This research will utilize one family of widely used mesoporous material-M41S which was first introduced by Mobil researchers in 1992[13]. Our proposed research will utilize the most popular member of this family: MCM-48 as the deposition target. The synthesized metallic oxide nanoparticles will be deposited to the porous surface of the MCM48. To ensure the stability and coverage of nanoparticles on the porous surface, the deposition process will be performed inside buffer solution while the temperature, additives and pH value is controlled. After the deposition is completed, surface morphology will be measured using Scanning Electron Microscopy with EDS. The formed hybrid material will be tested and evaluated for its performance. The proposed research is very much useful for the District of Columbia because it can help improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of wastewater treatment to meet the increasing volume of wastewater, especially in metropolitan area.