This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $150,000 to Claremont McKenna College to discover enzymatic pathways to break carbon-fluorine bonds in perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFAS). PFAS are a group of persistent chemicals that are costly to remove from the environment. The project aims to engineer special enzymes that can degrade these stable chemical bonds, which could unlock new technologies for PFAS remediation in...
This Project Grant award of $350,000 from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports a collaborative research project at the University of Missouri System (Missouri S&T) to discover enzymatic pathways that can break carbon-fluorine bonds in perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFAS). PFAS are a group of costly-to-remove chemicals that do not naturally break down in the environment due to their strong carbon-fluorine bonds. The goal of this 3-year project is to...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $119,998 Project Grant to the University of Arizona under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041) to develop new sorbents that can stabilize per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in sewage sludge. Approximately 55% of the 7.2 million dry metric tons of sewage sludge (biosolids) produced annually in the U.S. is applied as soil amendments and fertilizers in agriculture and land restoration. However, the increasing detection of PFAS in...
This Project Grant award for $420,000.00, provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), will develop a novel photochemical system to degrade per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water. The research aims to (1) investigate the working mechanisms of the new reaction system, (2) examine its performance in degrading various PFAS, (3) characterize PFAS degradation pathways and products, and (4) evaluate and improve the system's performance...
This Project Grant award, titled "INSECT: Insects for a Sustainable Environment and Circular Bioeconomy", is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Global Centers Program under CFDA 47.079 - Office of International Science and Engineering. The $1,999,915 award, granted on May 1, 2025, supports a 3-year interdisciplinary research initiative to develop sustainable solutions for feed and food production rooted in insect-based biomanufacturing practices. The project aims to...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $499,997 Project Grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to the Regents of the University of Michigan to fund research aimed at advancing the use of persulfate and powdered activated carbon for in situ capture and destruction of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contaminating groundwater. The 3-year project will: 1) evaluate reaction kinetics for PFAS degradation using the persulfate/activated carbon treatment process, 2)...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $312,596 awarded on October 1, 2022 will support research at San Diego State University to develop an innovative "trap and destroy" water treatment technology for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The university will work to optimize adsorptive photocatalysts that can selectively absorb PFAS from water and then destroy the compounds using ultraviolet or solar light. Key deliverables under the 24-month award include...
The National Science Foundation awarded a $415,814 Project Grant to the University of Illinois under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program. The grant will support research to evaluate hydrothermal liquefaction as a strategy for simultaneously destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that accumulate in sewage sludge from water resource recovery facilities, while recovering liquid fuel and nutrients. Over three years, university researchers will conduct experiments to...
This $499,988 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) seeks to develop and validate an integrated sorption-photocatalytic process for the ex-situ treatment and remediation of groundwater contaminated by mixtures of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and chlorinated solvents like trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). The principal investigator and research team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale will...
This three-year, $299,987 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research to stabilize per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in sewage sludge intended for land application. The Research Foundation for the State University of New York at the University at Albany will investigate transformations and distributions of PFAS precursors in model and real sludge samples, as well as soil-biosolids systems using soybeans, with the goal of...