The U.S. EPA announced $500,000 in research funding for five student teams to further develop their innovative water management ideas.
The awards are part of EPA’s People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) Program. The P3 program is a competition that offers teams of college and university students hands-on experience to create tangible changes in their communities.
“Congratulations to our winning teams on their creative and innovative solutions to address some of our most urgent environmental problems,” said Chris Frey, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “Their work is inspiring, and I look forward to seeing the final results of these projects.”
EPA says that its announced awardees have already been awarded a one-year grant of up to $25,000 for Phase I, which served as a “proof of concept,” to develop their idea. These teams then successfully competed for a Phase II grant of up to $100,000 to implement their design in a real-world setting.
The award-winning teams include:
- Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois., to provide clean water and improved water treatment technologies by producing a sorbent-enhanced sand capping technology for PFAS-contaminated sediments to reduce mobilization and bioaccumulation of PFAS in sediments.
- Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois., to create a floating treatment system that can be deployed to control harmful algal bloom outbreaks.
- Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., to design and test a self-sustaining device for nutrient capture and recovery for water treatment to prevent harmful algal blooms.
- Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida., to reduce air pollution and increase fuel resources by developing adsorbent materials that can remove impurities from biogas and landfill gas to produce biomethane, a carbon-neutral fuel.
- New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, to reduce contaminants and provide safe drinking water by developing an innovative microwave-assisted membrane filtration system to enhance the removal of per- and poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from water.
