Current areas of research interest include: 

• Abiotic destruction of chlorinated solvents.  This is an investigation of electo- and thermocatalytic methods for destroying chlorinated solvents like TCE, PCE etc., in contaminated water derived from pump-and-treat remediation efforts and gases derived from soil vapor extraction (SVE).  The target compounds are among the most common contaminants at US Superfund sites and pump-and-treat/SVE methods are among the technologies most frequently used for remediation of those sites.
  
  
  
• Brine minimization/disposal in reverse osmosis for wastewater recovery/desalination.  The most difficult aspect of desalination leading to utilization of brackish water or water reuse in inland locations is brine minimization and disposal.  Brine minimization is necessary for economic reasons, due to the value of water lost as brine and because brine disposal costs are related to volume.  The technical issues are related to membrane fouling and energy costs related to quality of membrane reject (brine) at high water recovery rates in membrane processes.  
  
  
           
                 
  
  
  
  
• Trace organic contaminants as impediments to water reclamation and reuse and disposal of biosolids on land.  Since wastewater treatment plants were not designed for removal of trace organic contaminants, it is not surprising that conventional wastewater treatment is sometimes inefficient in this respect.  However, some trace organics (particularly endocrine disrupting compounds--EDCs) can affect human and environmental health even when present in wastewater effluent at part-per-trillion levels.  Ongoing work is designed to establish the fates of estrogenic compounds and other EDCs during wastewater treatment, leading to affordable measures for managing trace contaminants when the products of wastewater treatment (reclaimed water and biosolids) will be used for beneficial purposes.  A practical test for measuring thyroid hormone activity in chemically complex water samples (eg, wastewater) is under development.  Also of interest are brominated flame retardants, which are used in common household products in great quantities and are therefore unavoidable trace contaminants in municipal wastewater and products derived from wastewater treatment (biosolids and reclaimed water).  The fates of these compounds, especially polybrominated diphenyl ethers, during treatment and following entry of these compounds into the environment is the subject of ongoing work.
  
                                        

                          

• Fenton-based destruction of chlorinated solvents.  Fenton's reaction is known to produce agressive radicals via the cyclical reaction of Fe(III)/Fe(II) with hydrogen peroxide.  The mechanisms of destruction of chlorinated solvents like carbon tetrachloride and perchloroethene are under study.  Application for in-place regeneration of spent activated carbon is also the subject of ongoing work.