Dr. Venkat Kode in his College of Engineering and Computer Science lab. Photo by Angela Foster.
Dr. Venkat Kode, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, has received a $199,516 National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) award to advance research on producing water from air using sustainable, low-energy materials.
The two-year award, which runs through April 30, 2028, will support Kode’s project, “ERI: Renewable Water Harvesting Using Tunable Solid Bio-Desiccants for Low-Energy Regeneration.”
The award represents an important early-career milestone for Kode, who joined the UTC faculty in fall 2024.
Kode said the project focuses on developing solid materials made from agricultural biomass waste that can capture moisture from the air and release it as liquid water with modest energy inputs. The work is designed to address a central challenge in atmospheric water harvesting: not simply pulling moisture from the air but doing so without requiring large amounts of energy to recover usable water.
Unlike many atmospheric water harvesting systems, Kode’s approach aims to reduce regeneration energy requirements while utilizing renewable biomass-derived materials. He explained that the research brings together materials science, sustainability and practical engineering.
“The problem is that we have billions of people around the world living in arid or semi-arid regions that have limited freshwater supplies,” Kode said. “To solve that, we need technologies that can capture water directly from the air to alleviate that water-scarcity issue.”
UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science Dean Kumar Yelamarthi called the grant an important achievement.
“The ERI award is widely regarded as the early-career equivalent of the NSF CAREER award, designed specifically to support promising investigators in establishing an independent research program,” Yelamarthi said. “Receiving the award is a strong validation of both the quality and potential of Dr. Kode’s work.
“This is a significant milestone. It lays the foundation for what I am confident will be a distinguished research career, and I look forward to seeing the impact this work will have on sustainable water harvesting solutions.”
Dr. Venkat Kode joined the UTC faculty in fall 2024.
According to the NSF award abstract, the project will design and validate bio-derived sorbent materials that combine porous biocarbon scaffolds with ionic liquids. The work will include material synthesis, performance testing and prototype-level validation to measure water production rates, regeneration efficiency and operational stability.
“The pain point is on the regeneration side,” Kode said. “Naturally, you can pull water from air, but how do we separate that pulled water from the material? That takes a lot of energy in conventional industrial processes.
“This project addresses that issue by capturing moisture from air and releasing it as liquid water with only modest energy inputs.”
Kode said the research will include a workforce development component and involve both graduate and undergraduate students. As the team converts agricultural waste—such as almond biomass, chestnut shells and peanut shells—into a bio-desiccant that naturally pulls moisture from the air, students will take part in prototype development and work with advanced instrumentation.
“This project will support one Ph.D. student and multiple undergraduate students,” he said. “This will help them gain hands-on experience building a prototype and working on state-of-the-art material characterization equipment. The hands-on skills will play a major role for students to gain enough experience to get good industry jobs once they graduate.”
Kode said the work will be carried out in his lab at UTC. He said the award will help expand his research program while strengthening UTC’s work in applied technology, advanced materials research and clean technology development.
The project also aligns with Pillar 3 of UTC’s 2030 Strategic Plan, which calls for advancing solutions for the Chattanooga region and Tennessee’s future through research and practical application. In Kode’s case, that means pursuing technology that could one day contribute to safe drinking water and renewable water solutions for agriculture, industry and defense.
Kode, who has received several UTC awards since joining the faculty—including the Ruth S. Holmberg Grant for Faculty Excellence—said it took time to fully process the news that the NSF award had come through.
“I had been constantly checking the status to see if there were any updates,” Kode said. “A couple of days before I got the news, I had a dream early in the morning that I won an NSF award, and I told my wife about it. We both laughed and wished it were true. Then, when I checked my email that morning, I rubbed my eyes, making sure this was not a dream. I read it twice before I realized that it was a reality.
“It took me a few hours to digest what just happened because this is my first federal grant awarded as a PI. It is kind of nice to get to manage a project for the next two years. More importantly, it helps me develop the workforce around the sustainable technologies on which I received the project.”
Kode is also a co-inventor on five granted international patents in the United States, Japan and Australia, with additional patent applications pending. His long-term research interests include addressing major global challenges such as water scarcity and carbon capture through scalable engineering solutions.
If successful, the technology being developed through this NSF-funded project could provide a sustainable pathway for producing water in regions where conventional freshwater resources are limited.
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UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science
Dr. Venkat Kode’s NSF ERI award will help expand his research program while strengthening UTC’s work in applied technology, advanced materials research and clean technology development.
