Sustainable Water Supply System

Sustainable Water Supply System in Illinois Using Innovative Electrochemical Treatment Technology

Tomoyuki Shibata, Ph.D.
NIU Associate Professor of Public Health

Kyu Taek Cho, Ph.D.
NIU Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Conventional centralized public water systems (PWS) are widely used in Illinois because they provide safe drinking water to large populations. However, these conventional water systems have some drawbacks, particularly their reliance on potentially harmful chemicals, high operating costs and large energy consumption.

NIU professors Tomoyuki Shibata and Kyu Taek Cho, together with Xiao Su, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, received an IIN seed grant to study the potential of innovative electrochemical treatment technology to create a more sustainable water supply system in Illinois.

The research team brings together expertise in chemical, mechanical and civil engineering, as well as public health, enabling a comprehensive analysis of the technical, economic, environmental and public health impacts of new water treatment technologies. Through a combination of laboratory-scale water treatment experiments, comprehensive surveys of water treatment plant operators and literature review, the team will gain an understanding of which innovative treatment systems have the potential to scale up for broad real-world implementation.

One challenge of conventional water treatment systems is their over-reliance on chemicals that are both expensive and – when used excessively – have been linked to adverse environmental and health effects. Electrochemical technologies, by contrast, can remove multiple contaminants without the need for such chemicals. However, current electrochemical technologies are not yet widely used in water treatment systems because of their large voltage demands and lack of flexibility in addressing multiple contaminants.

Aim one of this study will address those challenges by combining novel technology developed by Dr. Cho’s and Dr. Su’s laboratories. The two labs will work together to integrate Dr. Su’s ion-selective polymeric systems with Dr. Cho’s electrocoagulation (EC) technologies to create a novel water treatment system and test its effectiveness at laboratory scale.

For aim two of the study, Dr. Shibata will conduct a sustainability assessment using data from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, comprehensive online surveys of water treatment plants and literature review. He will compare the novel electrochemical system to existing water treatment systems to assess the real-world viability of the new system. Ultimately, the team hopes to leverage these preliminary findings to seek larger funding opportunities for full-scale tests of the novel treatment system.