Explore the Nano World
Wen's Research Group
Wen Zhang, Ph.D., P.E., BCEE
Principal Investigator
Professor
Phone: (973) 596-5520
Fax: (973) 596-5790
Email: wen.zhang@njit.edu
Office Location: Colton Hall 211
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2019 EPA’s National Student Design Competition
From June 17th to 18th, 2019, PI Wen Zhang with two student teams attended the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) people, prosperity and the planet (P3) National Student Design Expo in Boston, MA. Our two teams are 2019 P3 Phase I grants recipients, receiving $30,000 funding to develop sustainable technologies to help solve environmental and public health challenges.
Through this event, our team members not only showcased the teams’ innovative ideas and solutions to environmental challenges, but also created professional collaboration opportunities by connecting these emerging scientists and engineers with experts from other EPA programs, government agencies, and advanced tech companies. “Students at New Jersey Institute of Technology are creating affordable, sustainable solutions to the real issues we are challenged by in Region 2,” said EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez. “These students are applying science and cutting-edge technology to tackle important environmental threats to our lakes and the quality of our drinking water.”
In the expo this year, PI Zhang is the only PI who leads two EPA P3 teams and this is also the first time that NJIT has two teams attending the National Student Design Expo together, along with our industrial partner, Brisea Group, Inc. During the Expo, one team presented recent achievement and designed prototype about “Reactive Electrochemical Membrane (REM) filtration for PFOA/PFOS removal”. In this research, we investigated the versatile applications of REM in algal filtration, removal of disinfection byproducts, and emerging organic contaminants degradation. REMs are a novel reactive membrane that holding great promise in revolutionizing water and wastewater treatment. Another team presented the novel reactive nanobubbles (NBs) system for efficient and scalable harmful algae and cyanotoxin removal. This research project aims to devise a green sustainable process based on reactive nanobubbles (NBs) technology to control and mitigate harmful algal blooms (HABs). NBs may potentially be produced with air, oxygen, ozone or other reactive gases that promote rapid oxidation and decomposition of algae and associated organic contaminants (e.g., cyanotoxin).