Electrochemical Water Treatment: Materials and Processes

Humans generate teraliters of wastewater every day, of which 80% is discharged without treatment. While societies struggle to manage waste, natural environmental cycles reuse any 'waste' product as starting material elsewhere. Polluted water threatens aquatic ecosystems and exacerbates water scarcity, which a majority of people globally will experience by 2030. Discharging wastewater is an unaffordable luxury for a world facing climate change and resource scarcity. Reframing waste streams as sources of raw materials motivates the design of selective materials and processes capable of converting water pollutants into valuable products. Electrochemical separations exhibit several benefits for wastewater treatment, including their modularity, substitution of chemical inputs with electricity, and fine-tune control over interfacial phenomena. In this course, students will learn the fundamental principles and design rules for electrochemical materials and processes for next-generation water treatment. Assignments will focus on critically reviewing electrochemical water treatment literature, evaluating applications for removing pollutants and creating products from aqueous streams, and contrasting various approaches to address water pollution. Throughout the course, students will build towards final projects proposing novel materials or processes for electrochemical water treatment.