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Great Lakes project selected to receive up to $160 million from NSF

Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine is awarded up to $160 million U.S. National Science Foundation grant 

Current, the Chicago-based water innovation hub, is leading Great Lakes ReNEW, the multistate partnership to boost Great Lakes leadership on resource recovery and the circular economy

January 29, 2024 — Current, the Chicago-based water innovation hub, has been awarded up to $160 million over 10 years from the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop and grow a water-focused innovation engine in the Great Lakes region, the NSF announced today. Current is one of the 10 inaugural NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines). 

With a potential NSF investment of nearly $1.6 billion over the next decade, the NSF Engines represent one of the single largest investments in place-based research and economic development in the nation’s historyuniquely placing science and technology leadership as the central driver for regional economic competitiveness and job creation. 

The funding will enable Great Lakes ReNEW, a six-state collaboration coordinated by Current in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, to fulfill the NSF’s mission of spurring economic growth in regions that have not fully participated in the technology boom of the past few decades.

“Waste has no place in this world of increasing water and resource scarcity,” said Alaina Harkness, executive director of Current and principal investigator for Great Lakes ReNEW. “Our engine will find new ways to recover and reuse water, energy, nutrients, and critical materials from our water. These innovations will create economic opportunities for residents of our region; help strengthen our domestic supply chain for clean energy technologies; and address water quality and security issues around the world.”

In its winning proposal, ReNEW sets out to turn waste into wealth by figuring out how to remove dangerous forever chemicals, such as PFAS, and valuable minerals, such as lithium, from our wastewater. 

The vision is that American manufacturers would then reuse some of these extracted valuable minerals, enabling domestic production of batteries and fertilizers, almost all of which are currently imported. 

ReNEW was one of 10 groups from across the United States to be chosen as an NSF Engine. It was selected from 16 finalists, 188 invited proposals, and more than 700 initial submissions. 

“We have all the research and commercialization strengths here in the Great Lakes region to become a water innovation superhighway,” said Junhong Chen, co-principal investigator of Great Lakes ReNEW, Professor at The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and Lead Water Strategist at Argonne National Laboratory. “Now we can start building it.”

ReNEW is backed by six Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Illinois’ support includes $2 million in state funding for the innovation engine.

“The inaugural NSF Engines awards demonstrate our enduring commitment to create opportunity everywhere and enable innovation anywhere,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “Through these NSF Engines, NSF aims to expand the frontiers of technology and innovation and spur economic growth across the nation through unprecedented investments in people and partnerships. NSF Engines hold significant promise to elevate and transform entire geographic regions into world-leading hubs of innovation.” 

“This is truly a moonshot moment for the Great Lakes and Midwest climate leadership,” Harkness said. “A bipartisan coalition of three governors and organizations from six states aligned to bring Great Lakes ReNEW to life. We were ambitious; we were inclusive; and we were organized during the proposal effort. That will be our recipe for successful implementation.”

“The Great Lakes are a vital natural resource for the health, wealth, and security of our entire nation,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. “That’s why I’m thrilled that Current was selected to receive this federal award that will help transform our Great Lakes region. Thanks to investments like these, our top-tier workforce, and our industrial resources, we’re leading the clean water and energy revolution.”

“Protecting our Great Lakes and freshwater resources is an essential part of maintaining our economic momentum while supporting good-paying jobs and building the sustainable future we want for our kids,” said Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers. “Great Lakes ReNEW will help us connect the dots between industries, sectors, and states to promote research and innovation, bolster our workforce to meet 21st-century needs, and transform our economies for future generations.”

“By working together, we can ensure that we have both clean drinking water and innovative wastewater infrastructure to protect public health, provide for a high quality of life and enable economic and employment vitality,” said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

“I’m so proud of the region for this win,” said Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. “This is a win not just for clean water and climate globally, but also a win for regional cooperation locally.” 

“This engine will be anchored in Chicago, which is becoming a national epicenter for clean water innovation,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. “I want to congratulate Current, the University of Chicago, and Argonne National Laboratory for their ambition and ingenuity, which is going to create an untold number of jobs right here throughout the lifecycle of this grant.” 

Great Lakes ReNEW is made up of more than 50 partners that span research institutions, industry, investors, government and nonprofit organizations with a shared goal of developing and commercializing better “selective separation” technologies. 

ReNEW’s efforts won’t be confined to research labs. The organization also will connect partners across workforce development systems, from community-based organizations to credentialing programs, community colleges and universities to provide training and careers for individuals most affected by joblessness and systemic barriers to participation.

The NSF Regional Innovation Engine award builds on Upstream Illinois, a strategic plan developed with support from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration and released by Current and its partners in 2023, which is the nation’s first roadmap to inclusive growth and innovation in the Blue Economy. 

The grant award number is 2315268. The partnering organizations that make up ReNEW to date include:

AmFam Institute * AO Smith * Argonne National Laboratory * Black & Veatch * Burnt Island Ventures * CAEL * Cara Collective * Chicago State University * City Colleges of Chicago * Cleveland Water Alliance * Discovery Partners Institute * Dow * Entrepreneurs’ Center * Evergreen Climate Innovations * Exelon * Freshwater Advisors * Fund for Our Economic Future * HIRE360 * Illinois Institute of Technology * Illinois Science & Technology Coalition * Illinois Ventures * Imagine H2O * Marquette University * Mazarine Ventures * Metropolitan Council * Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago * mHUB * National Fund for Workforce Solutions * New Water * Northwestern University * NSF I-Corps Hub Great Lakes Region * Ohio State University * Oldcastle * P33 * Purdue University *  S2G Ventures * Sentry * State of Illinois * State of Ohio * State of Wisconsin * TIES * True North Venture Partners * University of Chicago * University of Cincinnati * University of Illinois Chicago * University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign * University of Michigan * University of Minnesota * University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee * Wayne State University * Whirlpool *  World Business Chicago * WRTP Big Step 

Research Assistant Opportunity (Remote)

Argonne National Laboratory’s Energy Infrastructure System Assessment Division is developing a comprehensive database and conducting analyses concerning non-traditional water resource availability and its application in energy production across the United States. This initiative is strategically designed to tackle the impact of climate change and heightened occurrences of extreme weather events on the freshwater resources, all within the framework of a circular water economy.

We are seeking 1-2 students with data science skills and background training in mathematics or engineering to join our team. This opportunity extends to both graduate and undergraduate students. The internship is part-time with the potential of remote working and lasts 3-6 months with the possibility of renewal.

Details in UNIVERSITY STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES (myworkdayjobs.com)

Job number: 416379

Big News!

The Center for Water Research, Current and our 50+ Great Lakes ReNEW partners are one of 16 finalists in the inaugural National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines competition, keeping our diverse six-state, cross-sector team in the running for a $160M award.
Our goals for this project are ambitious: leverage and align the tremendous scientific, economic and human assets of the great lakes region to accelerate the development of an inclusive blue economy innovation engine.
For more information, please visit the following sites:

 

Project Website

 

NSF Announcement

 

 

EES Seminar Series

Please join this week’s EES Seminar with Adam Smith on Friday, April 28 at 2pm in Tech A230.

Prof. Smith will discuss “Antibiotic Resistance in the Engineered Water Cycle: Emerging Biotechnologies, Portable Water Reuse, and Surveillance”

Northwestern team wins Chicago Innovation Award for Illinois State Wastewater Surveillance effort

Illinois Wastewater Surveillance System receives Chicago Innovation Award! Product makes waves across the state with a new approach to monitoring COVID-19

https://chicagoinnovation.com/winners/discovery-partners-institute/

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/11/northwestern-chicago-innovation-awards

Chicago Innovation Award Team Photo

CoWERC All-Hands Annual Meeting

CoWERC’ s first annual in person meeting was held both remotely and in person at Northwestern University, Chicago and Sde Boquer, Israel on Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th. Our lineup of events included individual technical project presentations by both projects leads and students, Lunch at Northwestern University’s Allen Center, Lab Tours, and an Executive Committee Meeting on the last day. The Executive Committee Meeting covered research and financial updates, as well as year 3 project plans. Overall, it was a very productive meeting, and it was great to finally be able to meet each other in person. Thank you to all who came to Northwestern University, including Amit Gross of Ben-Gurion University. To all our students and consortium leads – thank you for all your hard work thus far! We look forward to seeing everyone in-person next year.

Lab Tour

Group at Northwestern University

GET Israel: Topic 12 – EcoPeace

Transboundary water management

By Natalia Rodriguez, Alex Perry, Molly Whalen

Friday September 16th, 2022

Having visited a number of cultural sites and novel water facilities during our time in Israel, our last stop was EcoPeace Middle East, a nonprofit organization comprised of Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian environmentalists with the common goal of protecting shared water resources and ensuring access to them for the current and future generations.

We met with Daniel Nahum, education officer for environmental peacebuilding and water diplomacy of EcoPeace, in the Kiryat Sefer Park in Tel Aviv. In this gathering, Daniel exposed that EcoPeace was founded in 1994, amid the Oslo Accords. This organization was created as a way of fostering peace and sustainable development in the Middle East. Today, EcoPeace has three regional offices (Tel Aviv, Al Bireh, Amman), and their work not only includes urging actions to government officials, but also environmental awareness among the community. For example, they train teenagers to become agents of change and learn youth organization-building principles. Additionally, they prepare teachers in topics such as biology and water diplomacy so that they are able to teach them to their classmates.

The main highlight of our talk was the discussion of the severe water issues in the Gaza Strip, a 365 km2 region on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, which is under Palestinian control. Traditionally, the Gaza Strip has relied upon well drilling to provide water to over 2 million inhabitants. However, over drilling has led to contamination of the groundwater. Israel sells 10 to 30 million cubic meters of drinking water to Gaza annually, but this does not come near the amount needed to sustain the population. This supply is also unstable as Israel stops selling water to Gaza during periods of conflict. The second main point of our meeting was the introduction of the Green Blue Deal, a proposal that got buy-in from Israeli mayors to provide wastewater treatment to the people of Gaza. The pollution from Gaza’s sewage is so extreme that Palestinians were not able to swim in the Mediterranean until this summer, after the Green Blue New Deal was implemented. This pollution also affects Israelis as the pollution spreads northwards through the Mediterranean.

The Kiryat Sefer Park includes several water systems, such as ponds and fountains.

View of the center of Tel Aviv from the playground area of the park.

The water lily pond in the park attracts local birds and is the home of several koi fish.

GET Israel members exploring the water lily pond.

The Global Engineering Trek (GET) to Israel is jointly organized by the Northwestern Center for Water Research (NCWR) and the Israel Innovation Project (IIP). This program is focused on the topic of water (GET Water-Israel) and is offered to all first- and second-year Northwestern undergraduate students. GET Water-Israel is co-sponsored by McCormick Global Initiatives, the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies, NCWR, and IIP.

GET Israel: Topic 11 – Kinneret

Israel’s Sweet Water Resource, On the Verge of a Drought

By Kayd Bhagat, Emilia McDougal, and Vianey Guadian

The Sea of Galilee, also known as Lake Kinneret, is one of Israel’s most abundant sources of freshwater. At approximately 53 km (33 mi) in circumference, it is the largest freshwater lake in the country. It is also the second lowest lake in the world at 212 meters below sea level, second to none other than the Dead Sea. This, however, does make it the lowest freshwater lake in the world. The lake’s name has changed throughout history, the first being the Sea of Galilee as found in the New Testament. It was then named Lake Tiberias, after being conquered by the Roman empire. Its’ most modern name, Lake Kinneret comes from the Hebrew word kinnor (“karp”), corresponding with the shape of the lake.

In the past, the Sea of Galilee provided a third of Israel’s drinking water, but constant consumption of the lake water led to dramatic decreases in the water level. Over the years the Sea of Galilee has been pumped less and less to avoid exhausting its volume. Today, the Sea of Galilee has its highest water level ever recorded and has pumping restrictions in place. Pumping is stopped once a year for cleaning, on Passover, and when the country experiences low annual rain levels. The installation of desalination plants around Israel has also helped maintain its water level by supplementing the country’s drinking water. When the sea is pumped, the water is sent to the Eshkol site for treatment, and then dispersed to the rest of the country via the Jordan River.

While the Sea of Galilee plays an integral role in providing fresh drinking water to Israel and its neighbors, it is more famously known for its ties to the Christian religion. It is this body of water where Jesus was said to walk on water and calm a storm. Many other miracles were performed in areas surrounding the sea, like Jesus feeding 5000 from just a few fish and loaves of bread. Our group also had the chance to visit the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave the famous sermon on the mount. The church of the Beatitudes is thought to be located on the spot where Jesus gave his sermon and has eight sides to represent the eight different Beatitudes. Water from the Sea of Galilee flows south to Yardenit, a section of the Jordan River where Christians believe Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Each year, tens of thousands of people come to this holy site to participate in the sacrament and fortify their faith by entering the water. At both Yardenit and the Mount of Beatitudes, scripture from the bible was displayed in dozens of different languages, showing the far-reaching significance of these Christian sites.

Our visit to the Sea of Galilee reflected the grandeur of its historical, religious, and municipal significance in Israeli society and the rest of the globe.

The Sea of Galilee from afar.

A few of the students at a sandwich shop near the Sea of Galilee. Pictured left to right: Kayd Bhagat, Shyam Chandra, Molly Whalen, Damien Koh, Aidan Ocampo, Charis Lee, and Emilia McDougal.

Lake Kinneret and a nearby field.

The Mt. of Beatitudes on the visit to the Sea of Galilee.

View of the Sea of Galilee from the Mt. of Beatitudes.

The Global Engineering Trek (GET) to Israel is jointly organized by the Northwestern Center for Water Research (NCWR) and the Israel Innovation Project (IIP). This program is focused on the topic of water (GET Water-Israel) and is offered to all first- and second-year Northwestern undergraduate students. GET Water-Israel is co-sponsored by McCormick Global Initiatives, the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies, NCWR, and IIP.

GET Israel: Topic 10 – Eshkol and Sapir Site

National Water Carrier

By Shyam Chandra, Sara Bhaidani, Charis Lee

On September 15th, 2022, our GET Israel trip visited Mekorot, Israel’s national water carrier company that supplies Israel with 90% of its drinking water. More specifically, we visited the national water carrier’s Eshkol and Sapir sites — the pumping and filtration facilities located on the shores of the Sea of Galilee — to gain a deeper awareness of Israel’s national water infrastructure and treatment practices.

We had spent a large portion of our trip visiting specific desalination and treatment plants, so this was an especially engaging experience to tie everything together from a national perspective. Our visit began with an immersive water show that emphasized water’s significance in the history of Israel’s origin as a nation.

Water show experience.

We learned that around 85% of Israel’s current water supply comes from desalination, 10% comes from ground and surface water like natural springs and aquifers, and around 5% comes from the Sea of Galilee itself. The amount of reliance on the Sea of Galilee as a water source has reduced dramatically because the sea has been losing around 240 million cubic meters of water per year from heat and evaporation.

This experience helped us realize the harsh reality of Israel’s water supply (if innovations in desalination hadn’t alleviated water burdens). On average, there are only 40 days of rainfall in Israel per year, almost completely condensed to the rainy season (October – April), and every six years there is a severe drought. At times, springs will completely collapse, especially ones located nearby the Sea of Galilee. When it comes to aquifers, various contaminants from industrial processes and sites, like gas stations, have seeped into the groundwater. Mekorot is responsible for monitoring these changes in the water supply and ensuring that Israel’s population has safe and reliable water at all times of the year.

Floor map of the Sea of Galilee and surrounding areas.

During our visit, we got to see all five stages of the filtration process. It was fascinating to see how two independent filtration sectors were used to reduce the spread of problems in order to be able to run the plant 24/7.

View of filtration reservoirs from the Visitor’s Center.

Beginning with stage one, our tour guide illustrated the usage of Polyaluminum chloride (PAC) on flocculation/coagulation within incoming water. In this step, the aggregates sink to the bottom of a sedimentation pond forming sludge, and the remaining 99% of pre-treated water is returned to the sedimentation area. Then in the second stage, the water is moved into a standing operational reservoir where certain fishes are used to remove impurities and nuisances that bloom in the reservoir (i.e., particles, plankton, snails, algae, etc.). In stage three, the water is placed in the center filtration plant where another round of coagulation is used to remove additional bacteria, pathogens, and particles. Here, the particles are caught by an anthracite substrate, and the water is further purified through the use of a passive coil. Moving to stage four, the filtered water is advanced to a vacuumed reservoir where hypochlorite is added as a disinfectant. Lastly, in stage five the filtered water (10x better in quality than international standards) is transferred to the national carrier pipeline.

Scaled models of the Eshkol and Sapir sites (1).

Scaled models of the Eshkol and Sapir sites (2).

While this process is able to deliver 1.5 billion cubic meters of water a year through the 85 km long main national carrier pipeline to the Yarkon-Negev system to be distributed, there are still three parts of Israel that do not have access to this reliable water source. One of the major goals is to expand the water distribution and sewage pipelines both South to North and West to East. Highly impressed with the inner workings of this system, Mekorot did give us some food for thought on how to address their biggest challenges involving pushing back water into the sea of Galilee and dealing with the decreasing levels of the Dead Sea.

Sinking levels of the Sea of Galilee.

The Global Engineering Trek (GET) to Israel is jointly organized by the Northwestern Center for Water Research (NCWR) and the Israel Innovation Project (IIP). This program is focused on the topic of water (GET Water-Israel) and is offered to all first- and second-year Northwestern undergraduate students. GET Water-Israel is co-sponsored by McCormick Global Initiatives, the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies, NCWR, and IIP.