Soryong Chae: Taking Wastewater Filtration from Research to Reality

The University of Cincinnati 's SORYONG CHAE is a testbed lead for Great Lakes ReNEW. Chae conducts lab-to-pilot experiments to validate water and wastewater treatment technologies, including solutions for forever chemicals like PFAS. His work is critical to bridging the gap between research and real-world.

Q. Your research on vertical membrane bioreactors in South Korea has been quite successful. Could you explain how this technology works and its impact on wastewater treatment?

Chae: My PhD research was focused on developing a vertical membrane bioreactor to extract nutrients from wastewater. This technology has been commercialized in South Korea, where it operates now on an industrial scale. It combines biological processes and membrane filtration to treat wastewater effectively, capturing essential nutrients like phosphorus and ammonia, while removing contaminants like PFAS.

Q. What are the main challenges in bringing membrane technology like yours to the United States? Why hasn't it been widely adopted here?

Chae: The primary challenges are cost and energy consumption. U.S. wastewater treatment plants still widely use century-old technology. To upgrade or integrate membrane filtration systems into the existing infrastructure would require a significant financial investment. Membrane fouling, where biofilm accumulates on the membrane surface, increases energy demand and maintenance costs to remove and clean. The United States is also a huge country, so you cannot upgrade the entire wastewater treatment plant at once. It takes time.

South Korea, being relatively small in comparison, has already invested a lot of money to upgrade their wastewater treatment for tertiary treatment back in the early 2000s. They have since upgraded their wastewater treatment plants using membranes. But in the US, it will take a very long time to see this technology widely adopted. In the meantime, we’re developing novel membrane materials with carbon nanomaterials to mitigate membrane fouling and reduce energy consumption, which we hope to validate through our work within Great Lakes ReNEW.

Q. How does your work with Great Lakes ReNEW aim to address these challenges?

Chae: Through ReNEW, we're scaling up our novel membrane technology and testing it in real-world conditions in the U.S. EPA testbed facility in Cincinnati. This collaboration allows us to bridge the gap between laboratory research and industrial application. Renew offers more than just funding; it presents a unique opportunity to scale up and validate technologies in real-world settings, in collaboration with industry, which is crucial for transitioning from lab-scale to industrial applications. It's not just about finishing experiments in the lab; it's about long-term validation in collaboration with industries that will ultimately adopt these technologies. The goal is to demonstrate that our improved membranes can reduce fouling and energy costs, making the technology more feasible for widespread adoption in the U.S.

Q. What broader impacts do you foresee from this technology in terms of environmental and public health?

Chae: This technology can significantly improve water quality by removing nutrients that contribute to harmful algal blooms and other environmental issues. It can also filter out emerging contaminants like PFAS and pathogens, ensuring safer water for communities. Additionally, the captured nutrients can be repurposed for agricultural use, promoting a circular blue/green economy.

Q. What inspired you to pursue this field of research?

Chae: It was a chance encounter with a documentary back when I was in highschool. I was taking a break after my exams and flipping through TV channels when I came across a documentary about water scarcity in African countries, and its impact on the people there. I remember there was a woman who would make an hour-long journey every morning to a swamp to fetch water for her family. It was their only source of drinking water, and it was unclean; likely contaminated by wastewater and other pathogens.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study in college yet. This documentary profoundly impacted my decision to pursue Environmental Engineering so that I could help people facing this issue, so that more people have access to safe drinking water. This eventually led to my research and commercialization of membrane technology and materials, and the opportunity to scale this technology further through Great Lakes ReNEW.

Selective Separation: A Solution for Removing PFAS from Water?

We can’t see, touch, or taste PFAS, but we now know that these forever chemicals are an invisible menace lurking in our drinking water. With new EPA standards set to go into effect, methods to detect, separate, and destroy PFAS are attracting attention.??

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The ReNEWsletter is your source for the latest updates on Great Lakes ReNEW. The 50-partner coalition, led by Current,? aims to invent new ways to extract valuable minerals and remove toxic forever chemicals from our wastewater. Learn more about how we’re turning waste into wealth.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 2315268.