Water and food safety are global priorities, yet current disinfection technologies are increasingly inadequate in protecting public health and meeting regulatory standards. In the United States alone, over 48 million people suffer from foodborne illnesses each year, leading to 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Fresh produce such as leafy greens, berries, and herbs are frequent culprits due to microbial contamination during washing and handling. The economic burden is immense: foodborne illness costs the U.S. economy an estimated $77 billion annually in healthcare expenses, lost productivity, and food recalls. Waterborne pathogens add another dimension to the challenge. Salmonella, Cryptosporidium, and other resistant microorganisms continue to cause outbreaks despite conventional chlorination and UV treatment. A 2019 report found that up to 6 million U.S. residents may be exposed to drinking water exceeding EPA health advisory levels, underscoring the limitations of existing treatment systems. Chlorine-based disinfection, while widespread, creates hundreds of regulated and unregulated disinfection byproducts (DBPs), many of which are carcinogenic or mutagenic. Meanwhile, ozonation—an advanced oxidation process—faces technical barriers: ozone is 12 times less soluble than chlorine in water, rapidly decomposes with a half-life of minutes, and requires energy-intensive generators with high capital and operating costs.

We will commercialize a compact ozone nanobubble (O₃-NB) platform that replaces inefficient gas sparging with membrane-bubbling nanobubble dispersion. The system leverages our existing and fully commercialized nanobubble generator (https://purenanotec.com/products/) and further integrate with commercial ozone generators to generate ozone on-board and disperses it as sub-300 nm nanobubbles into the target water. O₃NBs exhibit high interfacial area, slow rise velocity, and electrostatic stabilization, which collectively increase the dissolved ozone retention and dissolution while minimizing off-gas losses. At the bubble–liquid interface, localized reactions promote hydroxyl (•OH) radical formation and direct O₃ attack on water pollutants or waterborne microorganism (e.g., bacteria and biofilm), achieving equivalent or higher log-reductions at significantly lower ozone feed. Because a much larger fraction of produced ozone is actually transferred and reacted in the water, we can downsize the generator, simplify off-gas control, and reduce energy and maintenance, delivering a safer, residue-free disinfection method for produce washing, controlled-environment agriculture, decentralized water systems, and Clean-in-Place (CIP) in food, dairy, pharmaceuticals, and water treatment.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are of increasing concern due to their widespread occurrence in the environment and their toxicity to humans and ecosystems, even at very low concentrations (parts-per-trillion levels). Because of the multiple carbon–fluorine bonds in their structures, PFAS are highly resistant to transformation and degradation. Available technologies that can destroy PFAS require extreme conditions such as high temperature, high pressure, and alkaline pH, and requires several hours of contact time for near-complete destruction. Such processes result in high energy consumption and high treatment costs. Additionally, many of these processes do not completely destroy PFAS and results in the generation of partially transformed byproducts of PFAS and the generation of short-chain/ultra-short-chain PFAS. The technology proposed here addresses and overcomes these important challenges by providing a chemically-mediated complete destruction of PFAS at ambient conditions (i.e. room temperature, atmospheric pressure, and near-neutral pH) within minutes. The chemical reaction is mediated by the presence of sodium metal complexed with naphthalene, that serves as a strong reducing agent that defluorinates all types of PFAS. Laboratory testing revealed that the chemical reaction has the potential to destroy aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) formulations, providing an opportunity to destroy residual AFFF wastes in fire suppression systems.

This project presents a highly innovative approach for the destruction of PFAS that has not been previously demonstrated. The proposed technology can be readily scaled up, as the chemical reactant is commercially available and the process design is straightforward. PFAS concentrates can be efficiently extracted from relevant waste streams using common solvents and subsequently treated with the sodium-metal reactant under ambient conditions. Given the rapidly expanding PFAS management market and the urgent need for effective destruction methods, this technology offers a significant competitive and environmental advantage. The requested $100,000 TITA seed grant will enable us to advance the technology from TRL 5/6 to a pilot- and demonstration-ready stage, paving the way for future commercialization.