CEE Emeritus Professor David Reckhow and Former CEE Ph.D. Student Julie Bliss Mullen Patent Novel Water Treatment

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With the increasing occurrence of various microorganisms and human-produced pollutants in the environment, access to clean drinking water is a mushrooming concern around the world. Now, Emeritus Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) David Reckhow and former CEE Ph.D. student Julie Bliss Mullen have obtained U.S. Patent Number 12,030,794 for their state-of-the-art invention titled “Method for Electrochemical Treatment of Water.” The two inventors have developed “a versatile, technologically effective, and cost-effective method of water treatment by using a flow-through reactor that utilizes an anode, including sub-stoichiometric-titanium-oxide electrode material.” See https://patents.justia.com/patent/12030794.

The invention patented by Reckhow and Mullen provides a revolutionary electrochemical treatment of water. As Reckhow and Mullen explain in their patent application, “The method includes providing a flow-through reactor, including a cathode and an anode, wherein the anode includes about 80-weight percent or greater of a sub-stoichiometric-titanium oxide. The method further includes applying power to the cathode and the anode, passing a solution, including water and a metal chloride, through the flow-through reactor, and withdrawing the purified water.”

The backstory for the invention is that the increasing presence of numerous microorganisms and human-made pollutants makes access to clean drinking water a problem worldwide. As Reckhow and Mullen point out, “The quality of water available for potable use varies greatly depending on the source and active pretreatment processes.” 

This issue is especially critical in smaller treatment plants. According to Reckhow and Mullen, “Varying characteristics of source waters make treatment difficult to control. Each constituent in water may have unique properties which dictate the type of treatment process used for removal (i.e., physical or chemical). The majority of commercialized water-treatment systems do not have the physical and chemical capability to treat varying water sources because of their limited treatment capacities.”

As a result, as Reckhow and Mullen say, “There still remains a need for an efficient, versatile, and cost-effective method of purifying water contaminated with various pathogens, metals, anthropogenic pollutants, and even some naturally occurring materials.” 

In response to this global problem, Reckhow and Mullen have developed their electrochemical treatment to resolve one of the major problems with smaller water-treatment systems worldwide: the inability to treat the widest range of contaminants due to a limited removal process. 

As Reckhow and Mullen explain, “The presently developed water-treatment device tackles this problem with the production of direct oxidants such as free electrons (electron transfer), advanced oxidants (e.g., hydroxyl radicals), and disinfectants/oxidants (e.g., free chlorine), which are formed at the anode surface. The produced free electrons, chlorine, ozone, and hydroxyl radicals are capable of treating a wide variety of different contaminants.” 

Reckhow and Mullen add that “One of the major advantages of the [patented invention] is that free chlorine is also formed during the process in concentrations sufficient for disinfection of many waterborne pathogens from ambient chloride in the water or added sodium chloride.” 

The resulting method – complete with hydroxyl radical formation, direct oxidation, and chlorine formation – enables transformative oxidation of the pathogens and chemical contaminants present in water, including E. coli, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, enteric viruses, and others. The patented new treatment then produces safe, purified, and drinkable water. 

Reckhow, who recently retired from the CEE department, is a much-awarded research professor who has served as the director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Innovation Network for Sustainable Small Systems and the head of the Innovative Treatment Technologies research group, which assesses various emerging technologies for treatment of water and wastewater. See David A. Reckhow. 

Mullen is the chief executive officer of Aclarity (PFAS In Water & Landfill Leachate Treatment | Aclarity | Aclarity, Inc.), a company which utilizes electricity to break the carbon and fluorine bonds that make per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) so robust and harmful after being produced by factories, airports, military bases, and other sources. Aclarity’s solution breaks the PFAS cycle of environmentally damaging removal and disposal. (December 2024)