C&EE 200 Seminar: Dr. David Jassby

Dr. David Jassby

Assistant Professor, University of California Riverside

Local Resilience in the Face of Drought:

Coupling Physical, Chemical, and Biological Reactions to Address Emerging Challenges in Water Treatment Engineering

Thursday, February 4, 2016

BH 4275

11 a.m.

As California endures another year of drought, there is a growing emphasis on developing and maintaining local, reliable water resources for municipal, industrial and agricultural activities. In an effort to develop these supplies, highly contaminated water sources, such as seawater and wastewater, are increasingly viewed as viable sources of water. However, the treatment and recovery of water from these highly contaminated sources remains a serious challenge across multiple sectors and industries. While existing treatment technologies can produce the desired water quality, the costs in terms of energy, chemicals, physical footprint, and waste disposal are often unacceptably high. The goal of our research program is the development of innovative water treatment processes that offer a solution to existing treatment challenges such as wastewater reuse, oil/water separations, brine management, membrane fouling, and groundwater treatment. Through an exploration of the physical, chemical, and biological phenomena occurring in water treatment systems, we hope to gain a fundamental understanding of the treatment process, and exploit this understanding towards the production of high quality water. This talk will cover several ongoing research projects, including (1) the use of electrochemical reactions to address treatment challenges such as membrane fouling, biofilm formation, organic and inorganic contaminant removal, and membrane polymer synthesis; (2) the development of self-heating membrane materials for membrane distillation processes useful in the treatment of high salinity waters; and (3) the separation of crude oil from water using ultrafiltration membranes coupled with magnetic Pickering emulsions. These projects rely on a combination of experimental and theoretical studies, and build on our expertise in colloidal science, microbiology, electrochemistry, and membrane separations.

David Jassby is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at UC Riverside. He received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Duke University (2011), an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis (2005), and a B.Sc. in Biology from Hebrew University (2002). Jassby’s research is primarily concerned with water treatment technologies. His lab is currently engaged in research concerning wastewater treatment, oil/water separations, groundwater remediation, biological desalination, membrane material development, and the electrochemical treatment of contaminated water.