The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Laura Wright will present Master’s research titled, Fate and Treatability of Engineered Nanoparticles in Urban Stormwater on 03/07/2024 at 10am in ECSB Rm 440C. Everyone is invited to attend.
Engineering
Chair: Dr. Jejal Reddy Bathi
Co-Chair:
Abstract:
As the use of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) grows, so does the concern for these emerging contaminants in our environment. Despite their tremendous benefits, the inevitable release of ENPs into the environment may have harmful effects and hence cause for concern. A critical literature review has been performed to summarize what is known about ENPs in the environment and two separate studies have been conducted exploring their behavior in stormwater and their impacts on control. Stormwater runoff is a key pathway for contaminants like ENPs entering surface waters and where physiochemical transformations begin to occur, which likely affect the fate and toxicity of ENPs, thus a critical environment to be studied. In the first study, the fate and transport of metallic ENPs is explored by stormwater source area (e.g., commercial and residential) and attempts to quantify how physical and chemical properties of stormwater impact the fate of ENPs. Through the analysis of particle size distribution, stormwater runoff samples with added ENPs showed trends of particle aggregation resulting in larger particles than those in stormwater without added ENPs. Notably, the aggregated particles in ENP-containing runoff exhibited prolonged stability before undergoing disaggregation. The second study focuses on how metallic ENPs influence the removal of dissolved metals by known treatment methods with bioretention media. The effects of silver nanoparticles were explored through adsorption batch tests of different media with aqueous solution of various Cu(II) and Zn(II) concentrations and analyzed through atomic absorption spectroscopy. It was predicted that n-Ag would interfere with the effective removal of dissolved metals Cu2+ and Zn2+, but there appeared to be no significant difference in removal rates for both metal ions when n-Ag was present compared to removal rates in the absence of n-Ag.