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U of I Students Develop Water Filtration with Global Implications
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P3 Research Project Search
In: Canton Daily Ledger 
June 02, 2007
URBANA -- A team of graduate and undergraduate students at the University
of Illinois has won an EPA award to develop a filtration system that will
reduce the amount of nutrients draining off of agricultural fields—a
system that could have worldwide applications.
The U.S. EPA awarded the team $75,000 as one of the top competitors
in the program “People, Prosperity, and the Planet,” or P3.
The competition began last year, when the team submitted their Phase I research
and design proposal to the EPA. They were among a group of approximately
50 chosen to receive an initial $10,000 grant to begin research.
“We used the initial grant money to conduct lab experiments that used
soil columns to test a variety of wood chips and other biomaterials as filtration
material to clean water,” said Paul Davidson, a U of I graduate student
in agricultural and biological engineering heading up the student team.
The students presented their results to a panel of judges at the
National Mall in Washington, D.C. on April 25. Only six of the
50 teams that competed were awarded the prize of $75,000, and this
is the first time U of I has won this award. The award ceremony
was held at the National Academy of Sciences.
Team members included Stephen Anderson, Malia Appleford, Greg Byard,
Davidson, Joe Good, Greg Goodwin, David Haase, Daniel Koch, Brandon
Kocher, Andy Lenkaitis, Jacob Mitchell, Amanda Olsen and Luke Zwilling.
Dr. Laura Hahn of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the U of
I has been associated with the team and participated at this competition.
Now the students will be moving their research to the South Farms
at the U of I or another location to conduct field experiments.
“One requirement of the project was to provide objectives
for the next phase of research should our proposal be funded,” said
Joe Good, a senior in civil and environmental engineering. “We
knew we had to move from a lab scale to a field scale. When you
move from soil columns to an actual field, you’re going to
get other variables that you can’t account for in a lab,
but are still necessary to determine what's going on in the filter.”
Prasanta Kalita, an associate professor of agricultural and biological
engineering and research advisor for the student team, is excited
about the opportunities this research project presents for the
students.
“Water quality is a big problem and concern in many developing
countries, so we have teamed up with the G.P. Pant University of
Agriculture and Technology in India, and we will be installing
one of these systems in India,” said Kalita.
“That university is the first agriculture university in
India,” he continued, “and it was established with
the help of the University of Illinois in 1962. Now we have a team
of students and professors in that university that is interested
in working with us initially through distance learning. We hope
to bring some of their students here to study this technology,
and then our plan is to go there (possibly in December) and help
them establish a system that they can monitor. This will provide
our U of I students an excellent opportunity to contribute in solving
water quality problems for millions of rural Indians."
Brandon Kocher, a junior in chemistry, said the variety of applications
for this research sets the U of I team apart from the others. “We
can apply our system to agriculture here, but we can also apply
it in India, clear around the world,” he noted.
“We even proposed to apply it to wastewater treatment in
residential septic systems,” Good added.
“This system isn’t limited to one area or one location.
It’s pretty much global," Davidson concluded. “And
water quality is an issue everyone should be concerned with.”
The group will return to Washington, D.C. next year to present
the final results of their research to the EPA. In the meantime,
they will present their findings to water quality and engineering
groups during the summer and in another national competition in
San Diego at the end of October.
In addition to the grant money from the EPA, the students have
received funds from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental
Sciences, the College of Engineering, the Department of Agricultural
and Biological Engineering, and a SURE (Special Undergraduate Research
on the Environment) grant from the University of Illinois Environmental
Council for their Phase I research. The group will continue to
generate more funding to cover their international travel expenses
this year.
Source: Prasanta Kalita; (217) 333-0945; pkalita@uiuc.edu