You were probably warned as a child to never combine water and electricity. The list of things not to do was impressive – don’t walk outside in a lightning storm, don’t plug in a hair dryer over a sink full of water. Essentially we were told some variation of "keep them far, far apart."
Well, Brooke Mayer didn’t get that message. Or if she did, she ignored it.
Mayer is one of a group of professors in the Opus College of Engineering at Marquette University who received a substantial grant from the National Science Foundation to study drinking water treatment. Her collaborators are Drs. Daniel Zitomer, professor and director of Marquette’s Water Quality Center, and assistant professor Patrick McNamara.
The way they’re treating the water? With electricity. Specifically, with a process called electrocoagulation, or short wave electrolysis.
The treatment is being used to eliminate viruses and estrogens, which are listed as contaminate candidates by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "This list is all about getting more information, so we can figure out should [the contaminants] be regulated, should they not? Are they actually a risk to us?" says lead researcher Mayer.
"This project is focused more on the mechanisms of how we’re actually getting rid of these pollutants. If we understand that, then we can tailor the process and make it more cost effective…," she says.
