Research carried out: In the research carried out so far from the funding of the resulting Katrina research, we have established proof-of-concept and developed a laboratory prototype of the water treatment system. The method is reasonably simple and treatment is carried out in a very systematic methodology as follows: transition metal (copper) is immobilized on the polymer matrix and the polymer-metal complex is immersed into the contaminated water body. Hydrogen peroxide is then added. Incubating the contaminated after above procedure results in reduction of contaminants level. Results show that water contaminated with various types of bacteria was treated with the developed system and bacterial load reduced by more than 99.9 % in 15 minutes. 65% of PAHs were removed from contaminated water within one hour of incubation. The prototype was successfully tested on floodwater obtained from New Orleans. Proposed research: Through the proposed research the PI will take aim to take a step forward and scale up the technology to treat 100 L of contaminated water. In the first step of the proposed research, we would modify the catalyst such that the developed catalyst would match in property and characteristics to that used in the field. In the second step studies will be carried out to develop charged catalyst before inserting it in contaminated water. This would be done to eliminate the addition of hydrogen peroxide into water. In the third step, the process, which is currently optimized for 1 mL, will be scaled up to 100 L capacity. Dimensional Analysis will be used to scale up the process parameters. In these studies artificial flood water will be created that would contain E. coli cells (1 x 107 cell/mL), naphthalene (0.5 ppm), lead and arsenic (10 ppm). Through various optimization studies we would develop the best combination possible of polymer, copper and hydrogen peroxide. Final concentration of 500 E. coli cells/ml, 0.05 ppm of napthalene and 0.1 ppm of lead and arsenic or less will be considered as successful decontamination. Treatment time will not exceed 6 hours.
