Meeting global energy needs in a sustainable and environmentally responsible way is one of the grand challenges of our time. While the use of energy based on fossil fuels has enabled great advances and an increase in the standard of living, it has also brought us to the brink of an environmental catastrophe. As a society, we will need to develop strategies that integrate renewable and sustainable energy sources.

This presentation will deal with global and national energy issues and how ongoing work at Cornell, especially on fuel cells and electrical energy storage technologies (batteries) can provide some potential solutions.

The presentation will provide an overview of the state of plastics recycling in the U.S. and current and potential uses of recycled plastics in infrastructure applications.  It will include major findings and recommendations from a 2022-2023 study by the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, on the use of recycled plastic materials in infrastructure.  The NASEM study committee, for which I served as chair, also considered how plastics recycling processes and upstream plastics manufacturing could be made more compatible with the recycling of plastics waste for use in infrastructure and other applications. 

Abstract Aerosols, defined as solid or liquid particles suspended in air, play an important role in indoor and outdoor air quality.  Aerosols can impact climate as well as human, ecosystem and planetary health. These tiny particles can also contribute to disease transmission.  In this talk, I will discuss the chemistry and impacts of aerosols from micro to global scales.

High-precision analyses of stable isotopes carried by organic compounds burst on the scene over 35 years ago. This innovation transformed organic geochemistry as well as a wide variety of fields, including drug testing, forensic studies, and environmental science. This talk will highlight and illustrate how molecular isotopes can be used to trace carbon cycling in past environments and provide an underpinning to important paleoclimate proxies. As space and planetary science enters an exciting era of unprecedented sample-return missions, new approaches to molecular isotopes have emerged and are providing exciting new dimensions to studies of our cosmic origins. 

California has the most variable hydrology of any state.  Climate predictions indicate that the future will entail longer droughts punctuated by intense wet spells.   At the same time, the state’s water infrastructure can no longer meet the needs of the 21st Century.  Addressing these challenges requires new ways of how we store and reuse water while leaving more water in rivers to support ecosystems.   Solutions to these challenges entail planning for less imported water, adopting new, energy-efficient water reuse systems, designing for efficient and safe stormwater capture and use, and implementing innovative groundwater recharge infrastructure.

This talk will introduce the concept of using biocatalysts (i.e., enzymes and microbes) as electrocatalysts for a variety of applications. The talk will start with a discussion of the use of enzymes and enzyme cascades for the deep or complete oxidation of complex biofuels in a fuel cell to improve efficiency and performance, followed by a discussion on the role of bioelectrocatalysis in electrifying the chemical industry. This will include energy and environmentally relevant chemical transformations (i.e., carbon dioxide reduction and nitrogen reduction to ammonia as an alternative to Haber Bosch) followed by a discussion of electrifying organic synthesis, where enzymes provide selectivity that is challenging electrochemically, but the electrochemistry allows for the ability to avoid the cost and safety issues of stoichiometric amounts of oxidizing or reducing agents.

Biomanufacturing of chemicals from waste streams has the potential to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-based feedstocks while enabling carbon recycling towards a circular economy. Anaerobic microbial communities (microbiomes) maintained in bioreactors can serve as the foundation to achieve these goals. Engineering anaerobic microbiomes to achieve specified functions remains challenging, and widely deploying anaerobic microbiomes at scale will require bioreactor innovations to maintain microbiome stability amid non-sterile waste streams and economic bioreactor operational strategies with high biomass retention. Dynamic membrane bioreactors (DMBRs) are an emerging class of bioreactors that use a dynamic membrane consisting of a biological cake layer formed on an inexpensive mesh support with submillimeter pores to accomplish biomass separation. The dynamic membrane allows the decoupling of the solids retention time and hydraulic retention time while minimizing membrane fouling challenges that limit the use of conventional membrane bioreactors for wet organic waste streams with high solids levels. The dynamic membrane also supports the growth of microorganisms that contribute to waste conversion. We have demonstrated the benefits of using anaerobic DMBRs for the high-rate conversion of different waste streams to a range of valuable products. This presentation will present results to illustrate the use of this innovative anaerobic biotechnology for diverse applications.

Imagine a pipeless water factory.  The western USA relies upon extensive water infrastructure in the form of mega-sized reservoirs, canals, and pipelines to transport water to urban areas where clean water is critical not only for drinking but also drives the economic engine through water for commercial, industrial and institutional water uses. Many arid regions are not located near oceans and are currently facing decadienal-scale droughts. For example, in Arizona, large-scale water infrastructure projects are being considered to import water from the Great Lakes, Columbia River, Mississippi River, Sea of Cortez, or Pacific Ocean, and will cost tens of billions of dollars. Our Global Center for Water Technology and the new NSF Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine are exploring the potential for Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH) to provide high-quality water for fit-for-purpose water uses – averting costly infrastructure. The challenge, of course, is the low relative humidity in arid regions. This presentation will present state-of-the-art methods to achieve AWH, present field data on water yield/energy requirements/water quality, describe how and who is considering using AWH, and provide a path forward for this technology and field.