Reimagining the Nitrogen Cycle: Wastewater Valorization

Online Zoom Event – July 22, 2020 @ 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

RSVP here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4625474

Zoom link provided to attendees the day of the event.
The event is a seminar-style presentation followed by a Q&A.

Reimagining liquid waste streams as resources can lead to recovery of valuable products and more efficient, less costly approaches to reducing harmful discharges to the environment. The nitrogen cycle has been drastically affected by humans via Haber Bosch fertilizer production, and results in net discharges of nitrogen that alter aquatic environments.

The Tarpeh Lab develops and evaluates novel approaches to resource recovery from “waste” waters at several synergistic scales: molecular mechanisms of chemical transport and transformation; novel unit processes that increase resource efficiency; and systems-level assessments that identify optimization opportunities. We design and investigate selective separations to recover high-purity products from pollutants in wastewaters. Leveraging these molecular-scale insights can increase the sustainability of engineered processes in terms of energy, environmental impact, and cost. In this seminar, we will discuss two selective nitrogen separations: 1) ion exchange resins loaded with transition metals and 2) electrochemical nitrogen stripping. Integrating investigations of novel materials and processes can identify criteria for future materials and enable processes with unprecedented performance.

Professor William Tarpeh received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in environmental engineering. He completed an MS in environmental engineering at Berkeley and a BS in chemical engineering from Stanford University. He is currently an assistant professor at Stanford University in the Department of Chemical Engineering.