Pretreatment Flux Rates for Nanofiltration

[scrubjay]

I'm sorry. Would it be all right if I asked more specific questions with a different thread so scientists don't get bombarded with other side questions from the begging of my experiment.

tomorrow when I make a similar thread will you please delete this one.

Thank you,
Andrew Palosaari

[deleted-71447]

Andrew, the Site Administrators will give you the final word, but my understanding is that it is best to keep (and not delete) all of your posts for a particular project in one thread so that the experts can see the history of your project development and what sort of help has already been provided. If you need to ask for help with several different things at once, I would recommend making a concise list of questions and requests. Every time you post, you can re-post your list, adding new questions and dropping old ones that have already been answered.

For faculty contacts, you could start by looking though this list to see who is working on issues related to wetlands:
http://www.eng.uci.edu/directory?dept=cee
This one in particular might be a good start:
http://www.eng.uci.edu/user/53

Good luck!
Chris

[scibudadmin]

scrubjay,

ChrisG's comments are spot on. We typically don't delete topics from the Forums unless they are spam, contain offensive material, or are duplicates. The reason for this is that many, many students, parents, and teachers search through the archives of the Forums and look at the responses that have been made. These individuals might not always post questions themselves, but they use the discussion that has taken place on the boards as a resource. You should go ahead and keep your questions on this topic. Like Chris says, Experts who are new to the topic do like to read over the previous posts to get their bearings--even if it seems that the previous posts are not about the subject of current discussion.

It looks like you're getting some great help and that you are asking some excellent questions. Good luck!

Science Buddies Staff

[scrubjay]

OK, but how do you change the main title of the thread if the experiment objective changes? Also how do you change you project question and where you are in your project timeline when it changes over time? Its on the right hand side.

Thanks

[deleted-71447]

To change the main title, you can ask a moderator to edit the title. If you start a truly new project, completely unrelated to previous posts, I believe it is OK to start a new thread. To edit your project timeline, go to "user control panel" -> "profile" -> "edit profile"

Don't worry too much about those operational details. If you keep posting here and continue to give updates about your progress and questions, the experts get to know your project well and they will do their best to help you.

[scrubjay]

Hi,
This is a little hard to find on the internet. What are the pollutants of concern when dealing with urban vernal marsh water. Which contaminants should be removed and brought down to what levels?

Andrew

[deleted-71447]

Hi Andrew,
The list of potential pollutants of concern is quite extensive. Here is the Environmental Protection Agency's "Current National Recommended Water Quality Criteria"
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/criteri ... index.html
In addition, there are many "emerging contaminants", pesticides, and other substances that aren't included on that list but are still a cause of some concern.
Chris

[deleted-71712]

Hi Andrew,

(ChrisG covered some of this, but I'd already typed it, so here goes.)

Which contaminants should be removed and brought down to what levels?

This depends on the intended use of the water. For example, you could choose to use the EPA's drinking water regulations as a goal:

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.html

A few things I would point out: (1) Water often has to be filtered through many stages, so your system doesn't have to do everything -- it might even be most useful if it removes one contaminant really well. It might be a good idea to test pure water with a contaminant of interest intentionally added, just in case other contaminants interfere with your filter's function. If that's the case, it could always be used after those interfering contaminants have been removed by a different filter. (2) As you can see at the link below, many contaminants that aren't yet formally regulated are being considered. Just because something isn't on the regulated list doesn't mean that it can't have an impact on health; there's some controversy and regulations are continually revised.

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/regs.html

What are the pollutants of concern when dealing with urban vernal marsh water.

To evaluate the effectiveness of your filtration technique, you're going to have to come up with a method of testing the amount of contaminant(s) of interest in the water -- both before and after, because even if you find published levels of contamination in your marsh, they will almost certainly vary depending on the time of year, recent weather, where exactly you sample the water, etc. So, if you absolutely can't find any relevant literature, you could do some of this testing before you make a final decision on a target contaminant and other aspects of your experimental design. This testing is something that you'll likely need the help of a research lab to do, so if you haven't already started contacting professors, go for it!

You might try searches that include terms like ppm, ppb, mg/L, or other units used in those tables to report contaminant levels and/or specific contaminants that you're interested in. You could also search for "vernal marsh" or even just "marsh" if you can't find info about something as specific as "urban vernal marsh".

Amanda

[scrubjay]

Thanks

[scrubjay]

After talking with my mentor at Madrona Marsh, I have decided to move in the direction of removing Sodium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, and and phosphates from the water. I'm planning to do some testing at Associated Laboratories in Torrance, CA. My mentor isn't quite sure which type of phosphate we will be trying to remove. PO4- ...PO4-3???..... Which phosphate type? Once I figure out what to test for---test it--determine what levels are acceptable--determine main membrane----do flux experiments for prefilters!

Thanks
Andrew

[scrubjay]

Also does anyone know any good professors working with membrane filtration that would be willing to mentor my main experiment?

Thank you,
Andrew

[deleted-71447]

The type of phosphate most commonly reported in water quality studies is orthophosphate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric ... ophosphate
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/data/BACT/info/TP.html

For a possible mentor, I would recommend that you contact Stanley Grant.
http://www.eng.uci.edu/user/53

[scrubjay]

Hi,

I have narrowed down my high school science research project to determining the appropriate pretreatment system in order to minimize fouling for a nanofilter in an urban vernal marsh environment. I plan to test possible microfiltration and/or ultrafiltration membranes(1) for the pretreatment of a nanofilter.

1. Several membrane manufactures were identified in ref. (1). Could you please put me in contact a membrane producer that has appropriate microfiltration and ultrafiltraton membranes that I could use in my experiment?

2. I am thinking about using a filtration module from "Pall Corporation" Do you have any recomendations regarding a selection of an inexpensive filtration module?

Thank you,
Andrew Palosaari

References:
1. Samer Adham et al., Optimization of Membrane Treatment for Direct and Clarified Water Filtration (Awwa Research Foundation, American Water Works Association, IWA Publishing, 2006).

[scrubjay]

Again does anyone know any organizations that would be willing to provide membranes for my experiment.
Thanks

[deleted-71712]

Scrubjay,

I think your best bet is to contact a professor at a nearby university who works with filtration membranes. (You could try someone at any university, but if they're close enough you might be able to visit to get some hands-on help and maybe use some of their equipment.) ChrisG recommended one in a previous post, but you could find others either through a search engine or by going to the websites of appropriate departments (Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, and maybe Ecology would be good starting points) at nearby universities and looking at faculty research interests.

Emailing a professor might be intimidating, but most of them really would be happy to help you -- especially since you have done a great deal of background research and have a specific idea about what you'd like to do. The majority of professors enjoy involving students in their research, and in addition, it 'looks good' for them to spend some time doing that when they apply for grants, etc. I would suggest a subject like "nanofiltration membrane -- high school science project", and you can always say that you'd appreciate being redirected to a more appropriate person if you aren't sure that their research is related enough to your plans. After introducing yourself, include a few sentences about your plan, making what you need help with as specific as possible, and have ready a longer write-up to send if you receive a positive response.

Best wishes,
Amanda