Document Actions
Penn State Researcher Aims for Pure Water
Two basics of life—clean water and energy—help keep Mike Hickner highly motivated in his Steidle Building labs. One of his goals is to develop technology that allows consumers to recycle water from their homes and decrease their reliance on the power grid. Home water-purification units and distributed power devices—whether it’s power from a solar panel that sits atop their roof or from an energy storage device that is plugged into their basement—will usher in a new era of how we use and conserve energy.
Hickner is Assistant Professor and Walker Faculty Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State and works with a team of researchers to develop technology related to alternative energy systems and next-generation polymers for water purification and antifouling applications. He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Tech, a M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech, and has been at Penn State since 2007.
“We can have technology in our homes or office buildings to provide more of our everyday needs,” he says. Consider the pipes that carry water throughout a city. “These underground systems and infrastructure are getting very old. We need to figure out better ways to reuse, recycle and purify our domestic water supply as resources and infrastructure become more strained.”
Converting salty ocean water into drinkable water is just one project for Hickner and his colleagues. He has developed close ties with researchers at the U.S. Navy and Army. A Navy ship might be in the middle of an ocean, and the sailors need to convert ocean water into drinking water. The Army may only have access to swamp or lake water and they too need to purify this water for consumption. Hickner wants to simplify and improve the desalination and purification process. “We need to get rid of viruses and pathogens and safely purify the water that our military members have access to, wherever that is in the world,” Hickner says.
The military’s basic everyday needs are water, energy and food. The Army and Navy are early adopters of new technologies since their training bases can be considered small, movable cities with self-contained infrastructures. And this controlled environment is helpful when implementing new technologies. Another water-related technology that Hickner is spearheading includes developing a polymer coating that can inhibit unwanted growth on the hulls of Navy ships, which will help keep these ships running efficiently. Because of his work in membranes and water treatment, the Department of Defense awarded Hickner a $1 million Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) grant to help fund his ongoing research.
Hickner and his team are also focusing efforts on alternative energy storage. This work includes storage devices that can be linked to solar panels and wind generators. “We have to store energy for times during the day when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow,” he says. “Someday, we hope to charge our electric cars from our homes and not rely on the city’s aging electrical grid for all of our energy needs.” Major work in energy storage in Hickner’s lab is funded by DOE ARPA-E in a collaborative project with Chao-Yang Wang (Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering) and Proton OnSite, a leading company in hydrogen production.
To discover these next generation materials, Hickner works closely with other universities and federal agencies, and collaborates with companies such as General Motors, Dow Chemical and 3M. Other partners include Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory. “The Industrial Research Office plays an important role in interfacing with companies. These strong ties make us more visible in the industrial sector.”
“Water and energy are long-term issues. We will always need research to address these critical needs,” he says.
