{"id":238578,"date":"2025-12-09T07:15:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T12:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=238578"},"modified":"2025-12-11T13:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T18:11:31","slug":"uconn-engineering-selected-to-receive-3m-in-federal-funding-for-wastewater-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/12\/uconn-engineering-selected-to-receive-3m-in-federal-funding-for-wastewater-research\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Engineering Selected to Receive $3M in Federal Funding for Wastewater Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Connecticut recently announced that it has been selected to receive $3M in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding is part of the Realize Energy-rich Compound Opportunities Valorizing Extraction from Refuse waters (RECOVER)\u202fprogram, which aims to reduce American dependence on critical mineral imports by establishing new, secure domestic supply chains.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Portrait
Baikun Li (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe University of Connecticut is a national leader in developing sustainable water and energy technologies,\u201d says\u00a0UConn Engineering dean JC Zhao. \u201cThis project builds upon UConn\u2019s strengths in separations technology, wastewater treatment, and process systems engineering, and we are excited to support a growing national need for technologies that help the United States tap new sources of critical minerals that are essential to its economy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The team will be led by Professor\u00a0Jeffrey McCutcheon, who is\u00a0the\u00a0Director of the Connecticut Center for Applied Separations Technologies and the General Electric Professor of Advanced Manufacturing in the Department of Chemical\u00a0and\u00a0Biomolecular Engineering. He is joined by Professor\u00a0Baikun Li (from the\u00a0UConn School of Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Professor\u00a0George Bollas (chemical and biomolecular\u00a0engineering). USP Technologies, Brown & Caldwell, and the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District (GLSD)\u00a0join\u00a0the team as industrial partners.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe discoveries happening at UConn Engineering reflect a broader mission: to fuel America\u2019s innovation engine through transformative research in water, energy, and resource recovery,\u201d McCutcheon says. \u201cWith ARPA-E\u2019s support, our team is advancing technologies that can unlock new domestic sources of critical minerals while improving the sustainability of wastewater treatment systems nationwide. This project demonstrates how cutting-edge separations science can strengthen U.S. economic resilience, reduce reliance on foreign supply chains, and create new pathways for recovering essential resources. It\u2019s the kind of nationally consequential engineering that UConn is uniquely positioned to deliver.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Portrait
George Bollas (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn\u00a0and its collaborators will\u00a0demonstrate\u00a0a hybrid system capable of recovering phosphorus and ammonia from wastewater as high-value liquid products. The integrated process will combine ceramic vacuum membrane distillation to extract ammonia and bipolar membrane electrodialysis to capture phosphorus as phosphoric acid.\u00a0Dubbed\u00a0the Intensified Anaerobic Digestion with Resource Recovery (IADRR) process, the process will be derisked in Storrs before launching a field demonstration at GLSD in Massachusetts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additional\u00a0information\u00a0about the Connecticut Center for Applied Separations\u00a0Technologies\u00a0can be found\u00a0<\/span>online.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The University of Connecticut is a national leader among public research universities, with more than\u00a032,000 students\u00a0seeking answers to critical questions in classrooms, labs, and the community. A culture of innovation drives this pursuit of knowledge throughout the University’s network of campuses. Connecticut’s commitment to higher education helps UConn attract students and globally renowned faculty members who thrive in the most competitive environments. Our school pride is fueled by a history of success that has made us a standout in Division I athletics. UConn fosters a diverse and vibrant culture that meets the needs and seizes the opportunities of a dynamic global society.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This fund is part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Program to eliminate waste of essential minerals and increase domestic resiliency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":238582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866,2460,2648,2076,2235,2198],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2445],"class_list":["post-238578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr","category-faculty","category-blue-research","category-research","category-today-homepage","category-tolland-county"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-31 12:48:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238578"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238701,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238578\/revisions\/238701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/238582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238578"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=238578"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=238578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}