New state-of-the-art equipment in undergrad teaching labs advances sustainability through collaboration
A new reverse osmosis (RO) water system was installed in the Chemical Engineering undergraduate teaching labs in the Douglas Wright Engineering Building (DWE) this summer. The new RO system eliminates the need for a large amount of hazardous chemicals and manual operations required for the outdated existing unit while providing a quality and sustainable supply of deionized (DI) water for teaching and research in DWE. The unit was partially funded through the Sustainability Action Fund.
“Labs are often energy intensive and have high chemical and material footprints, which create important sustainability impacts,” says Mat Thijssen, Director of Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. “We have been expanding our Green Labs programming to address these impacts and are excited to support the Department of Chemical Engineering to make significant improvements through the new RO system. It is also fantastic that hundreds of students will learn about the system each year, potentially magnifying its impact across their future careers!”
In broad terms, working with DI water systems helps advance the UN Sustainability Goals.
Undergraduate chemical engineering students need to have continuous and reliable access to deionized water. The fully automated system removes chlorine, lime, calcium, magnesium, and other metal pollutants such as lead which can interfere with the proper functioning of lab instruments and lab experiments. This new equipment is set to provide a sustainable DI water supply for the needs of teaching and research in DWE.
“The new $35,000 system will also be used as a teaching tool to educate more than 650 students on sustainable lab practices,” says Lab Director John Zhang. “As the system is a pilot-scale production unit and is near the undergraduate teaching lab, it can provide students with an experiential, hands-on tool to explore sustainable water purification and wastewater treatment technologies to complement their existing RO labs.”
With this complete production equipment unit, students will learn about water desalinization and clean drinking water production. They will also learn about the application of reverse osmosis for other processes. These include agricultural uses, such as fruit-to-fruit juice concentrate, and wastewater treatment.
Deionizing water with the new system will be a versatile and low-cost process. A system like this could be used to create clean drinking water for Indigenous communities. It is a low-maintenance unit, and filter change is done annually.
“The new RO system will be especially conducive to laboratory learning in open-ended project-based laboratories with designs for a senior lab course. Working with the new equipment will give students first-hand experience in the process/technology and a deeper appreciation of the underlying theories, this can help advance their learning in a project-based laboratory and better achieve the desired learning outcomes,” says Zhang.