This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project propose to use a highly effective microfluidic based process to clean and disinfect contaminated water. Veloctron will build the portable water treatment unit and test the efficiency in killing pathogens and removing particles. The feasibility of removing contaminants using micro bubble clusters and the subsequent degradation of pathogens and chemical compounds by imploding the bubble clusters will be tested.
The broader/commercial impacts of this research are to provide solutions that would enable the use of potentially contaminated water in a crisis or in areas without proper water sanitation infrastructures. The use of untreated water poses a severe health threat to populations throughout the world. According to the CDC, over 100 million Americans obtain their water supply from ground water,and over 50% of the reported waterborne outbreaks were due to untreated water. In addition, the potential contamination of clean water sources during crises such as flooding, hurricanes, earth quakes, or terrorist attack poses additional challenges because the established water treatment infrastructure may be unavailable to respond in time.
The objective of this Phase I proposal was to develop a portable, low cost, and low maintenance water treatment unit that can provide safe drinking water to address the need of million Americans and people worldwide. The phase I SBIR allowed Veloctron LLC to develop a new water treatment unit that uses micro structure generated bubbles to remove particles and bacteria from water supply. The system utilized 3D microfluidic chips to control the mixing of bubbles and contaminants within the water supply. A 3D microfluidic chip is a small functional unit having channels and pores that are smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The device utilized controlled bubble clusters to remove micro objects from the water supply. The bubble clusters can act as a filter that traps bacteria and particles as the bubbles move toward the surface of water. The other mechanism that was introduced into the system is the acoustic cavitations mechanism. The mechanism allowed microbubbles to first absorb the energy produced by ultrasound transducers and then release the energy into water as the bubble collapses. It was shown that the new microfluidic bubble production mechanism can be operated at a minimal air pressure while processing a large amount of contaminated water. The efficiency of particle and bacteria removal is dependent on the operating condition and on the design of the microfluidic device. The flotation-cavitations mechanism was shown to be capable of killing and removing bacteria. This new microfluidic water treatment mechanism holds promise to be developed into a low energy- high efficiency waste water treatment system. The phase IB award enabled the development of a self cleansed membrane system that can remove clogs from filtration membranes. A problem that challenges the current membrane industry is the limited life cycle of membrane used for liquid filtration. As more particles gets trapped onto the pores of the membrane filter, the filtration efficiency decreases until the membrane is no longer usable. The new self-cleansing mechanism developed by Veloctron utilized air flow to reverse the clogged particles. It was shown that the clogged membrane can be completely cleansed using this new mechanism.
