CHED 828 |
| William Underwood and John C. DiCesare. |
| This research project is to develop a water reclamation system (WRS) for use in long term shuttle missions, such as NASA's planned mission to Mars. A side goal of this project is to adapt the system for use on Earth as a water purification system. Our WRS uses a titania impregnated SBA-15 mesoporous particles which are then incorporated into a larger silica gel. The use of a silicon matrix allows us to create a porous matrix that provides the water and impurities access to the titanium catalyst, as well as allowing light to penetrate the entire packed-bed to provide energy for the catalyst. The use of impregnated SBA-15 over pure titania particles, such as Degussa P25 provides a greater surface area to volume of titania particle. Not only does this allow more surface titania to be available to react, but it also allows more titania to be incorporated into the matrix without the gel becoming opaque to light. Currently all matrices made are only active in the UV range of light, which is fine for NASA but is inefficient on earth. To solve this, a dopant is added with a target wavelength in the visible spectrum. |
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Undergraduate Research Poster Session: Environmental Chemistry
2:00 PM-4:00 PM, Monday, 27 March 2006 Georgia World Congress Center -- Ex. Hall B4, Poster
Division of Chemical Education |