Professor Clarkson receives grant from National Water Innovation Coalition for dehalogenation of emerging pollutants

Associate Professor Yang Yang of the Coulter School of Engineering at Clarkson University has received a $503,000 three-year research grant from the National Alliance of Water Innovation (NAWI), a research program supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Yang received a grant for his research project titled “Precise electrochemical dehalogenation of his PFAS in desalination concentrates by high-entropy catalysts”.

Yang’s team, in collaboration with Arizona State University professor Christopher Muhich, is working to reductively eliminate a variety of new contaminants, including PFAS, in membrane concentrates, a type of highly complex wastewater produced in the desalination process. We use a computer-guided approach to synthesize high-entropy alloy catalysts for the destruction of . The findings are expected to serve as a key part of desalination systems, support water sustainability, and provide new insights into the design of functional electrocatalysts.

NAWI is a five-year, $110 million research program supported by the U.S. Department of Energy in collaboration with the California Department of Water Resources, the California Water Resources Board, and numerous industry and academic partners. NAWI is headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Co-founded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).