Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** agricultural wastewater poses…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** agricultural wastewater poses serious risks to the ecological system and human health. Current water practices face great challenges of limited efficiency for removing persistent contaminants, reduced treatment performance in complex water matrices, and a high chemical and energy demand in treatment. Chemical catalysis by single-atom catalysts (sacs) and double-atom catalysts (dacs) has emerged as a promising approach for agricultural wastewater treatment with enhanced efficiency, robustness, safety, and scalability. The most significant feature of the sacs and dacs is that catalytic metal atoms are monodispersed on a solid support, and these metal atoms show higher unsaturated coordination, quantum size effects, and favorable metal-support interactions to facilitate many unique catalytic reactions.dacs exhibit synergistic effects between two metal atoms to further increase the catalytic activity. The overall goal is to fabricate and characterize sacs and dacs for degrading persistent antibiotics and pesticides in agricultural wastewater. The investigatorswill utilize a comprehensive approach that integrates molecular simulations, advanced microscopic and spectroscopic characterizations, and the evaluation of reaction kinetics and pathways to prepare sacs and dacs with excellent performance for agricultural wastewater treatment. The project will use nanotechnology enabled solutions for enhancing agricultural wastewater treatment and promoting the protection for natural resources, the environment, and agricultural ecosystems.