Clarkson Professor Receives Grant From National Alliance of Water Innovation For Dehalogenation of Emerging Contaminants

Yang Yang, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Coulter School of Engineering at Clarkson University, received a $503,000, 3-year research grant from the National Alliance of Water Innovation (NAWI), a research program supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Yang received the grant for his research project titled: “Precise Electrochemical Dehalogenation of PFAS in Desalination Concentrates by High Entropy Catalysts.”

Yang’s team will collaborate with Professor Christopher Muhich of Arizona State University to use computationally guided approaches to synthesize high entropy alloy catalysts for the reductive destruction of various emerging contaminants, including PFAS, in membrane concentrate, a type of very complicated wastewater produced in the desalination process. The research outcomes are expected to serve as a critical part of the desalination system to support water sustainability and bring new insights into the design of functional electrocatalysts.

The NAWI is a 5-year, $110M research program supported by the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with the California Department of Water Resources, the California State Water Resources Control Board, and numerous industry and academic partners. NAWI is headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). It was co-founded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).