Technologies for One Water in Extremely Resilient-buildings (TOWER)

Part 1.

This project proposes to build collaborations between US researchers and international partners from five countries - Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica, Egypt, Taiwan.

From drought to flooding, water is central to the discussion of urban climate resilience. Existing, centralized urban water systems are unlikely to meet the growing water stress due to climate variability. Buildings are essential elements of the built urban environment.

The proposed TOWER project envisions extremely resilient-buildings across a wide range of climate and geographic zones; these buildings can self-sustain in water supply and disposal during normal occupancy and rapidly recover from disasters. The research team will: (1) acquire critical knowledge in water quality in buildings, especially on disinfection byproducts, a group of harmful compounds that may be prevalent in water-efficient buildings, (2) develop innovative and efficient advanced oxidation treatment technologies to reuse wastewater and stormwater; (3) design novel polymer materials to capture water vapor efficiently; and (4) develop guidance for implementation of these novel technologies in extremely resilient buildings.

The project embraces the “One Water” concept that recognizes the interconnectivity of water resources. The educational activities in this PIRE project utilize the “persistence framework,” which integrates early research experience, learning communities, and active learning. This approach has been shown to increase retention of underrepresented minority students, while improving all students’ academic performance.

In addition to offering training opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students, the project will provide science outreach to middle and high school students, and increase the science literacy of the general public. The education activities parallel the interdisciplinary research collaboration among architecture, chemistry, environmental engineering, and chemical engineering.

The undergraduate, graduate, and outreach education opportunities all contribute to building a climate-aware workforce. Part 2.

This project is expected to have transformative impacts on enabling net zero water buildings. To safely achieve close-loop potable water reuse in buildings across different climates, innovative and reliable treatment systems must be developed to expand the sources for water reuse to include wastewater and stormwater, along with a thorough understanding of the quality and their health risks of the treated water within the building.

The research team will utilize state-of-the-art high resolution mass spectrometry to investigate the occurrence, formation, and transformation of disinfection byproducts. They will build models to enable “smart” advanced oxidation processes that can be optimized for building-scale applications; the models will bridge fundamental radical chemistry with system performance.

The proposed effort towards efficient and scalable water vapor harvesting focuses on the most critical system component: the water sorbent. Using a zwitterionic molecule-based platform, the researchers will engineer novel temperature-switchable polymers at the molecular scale. Lastly, building on the technology advancement and leveraging the international collaboration, the team will develop a framework to guide the implementation of extremely-resilient buildings based on building practices, occupancy, water usage profile, climate zone, and socio-cultural parameters.

The research team will analyze plumbing and health regulatory documents related to water harvest across our testing sites to identify opportunities for guidance in regulatory updates. Through international collaboration, the research team will be uniquely positioned to accelerate scientific and technology advancement globally.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.