Lead can be present in drinking water from its historical use in plumbing materials including pipes, fixtures, and solder. Exposure to lead in drinking water can have adverse health effects, especially in young children and pregnant women. To ensure safe drinking water, many consumers adopt point of use (POU) treatment technologies, which commonly remove lead via adsorption on activated carbon. Given recent concerns over the ability of traditional carbon filters to remove both dissolved and particulate lead, there remain opportunities to improve POU devices for lead treatment. However, efforts to develop new approaches typically rely on media that is far more expensive than activated carbon. We have previously produced composite nanofiber membranes with high sorption capacity for lead relying on research grade raw materials that would not be economically viable for fabrication at the industrial scale. In this study, we are working to identify optimal compositions of functionalized polymer-iron oxide composites based not only on their performance (i.e., overall lead removal capacity) but also cost-effectiveness (i.e., lead removal normalized media production cost). Work is being conducted across a wide range of raw materials, synthesis conditions, and application scales from bench-top to technology prototype. Outcomes of this work help to illustrate the potential of functionalized electrospinning nanofiber composites as a promising alternative to conventional POU filtration to treat lead in drinking water.

Evaluation of functionalized polymer-metal oxide nanofiber composites as point-of-use technologies for removal of lead from drinking water

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.