Research

Using nanoscale membranes to clean water on the Moon

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 22:26:02 +0000

Using nanoscale membranes to clean water on the Moon Jeff Zehnder Fri, 10/25/2024 - 16:26

Jeff Zehnder

Anthony Straub is making major advances in water purification technology for industry and human consumption on Earth and in space, with his work on a nanotechnology membrane process taking a major step toward commercialization, thanks to a new NASA grant.

An assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the �鶹��Ƶ, Straub’s research focuses on using membranes to improve water treatment.

“The membrane technology that is widely used now is essentially half a century old, and it has well-known limitations,” Straub said. “ It works well for many applications, but it has a tendency to let certain impurities through and it degrades if exposed to certain harsh chemicals.”

NASA has awarded Straub and one of his PhD students, Kian Lopez, a phase one Small Business Innovation Research award to develop a pilot water purification system for astronauts to use on a future Moon base.

Current space water purification systems are bulky and prone to repairs. The technology Straub’s lab has developed only requires a pump to pressurize water, reducing size and weight. Low weight is especially important in moon missions, where every kilogram of cargo can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“Current membranes remove impurities based on size and charge and, as a result, allow for small impurities to bypass the membrane,” Straub said. “What we’ve designed traps a very small layer of air inside a membrane and the only way for the water to cross the barrier is by evaporating and then re-condensing on the other side, which impurities inherently cannot do.”

The entire process occurs over a 100 nanometer span, a distance 160 times smaller than the width of a human hair, and the water that results is nearly pure H2O – distillation quality — since it has been turned to steam and then back to liquid.

These new membranes can be made from a wide variety of materials; the advance is in modifying them to create the air trapping layer. Although the work has been a longtime focus of Straub, he had not considered space applications or commercialization until Lopez returned from an internship at NASA.

Schematic of the membrane process.

“My mentor at NASA said this technology looks promising and the biggest impact we could have would be to start our own company,” Lopez said.

Straub and Lopez decided to attend the New Venture Launch class together in the CU Boulder Leeds Business School, participating in campus technology transfer initiatives, including the New Venture Challenge and Lab Venture Challenge. They founded Osmopure Technologies, Inc. in January of this year.

Space is but one application. Other potential is in municipal water systems and industry, particularly semiconductor or computer chip manufacturing, which requires ultrapure water.

Although ultrapure sounds like a marketing buzzword, it has a formal definition: water free of all minerals, particles, bacteria, microbes, and dissolved gasses. The needs go far beyond water that is safe for human consumption.

“The minimum for ultrapure water in chip manufacturing is a 14-step process right now. The final product must contain less than one 10-nanometer particle per milliliter of water, which would be the density equivalent of having only a single person on the entire planet Earth,” Lopez said.

Semiconductor chips are manufactured in clean rooms, and ultrapure water is necessary to maintain temperature and humidity as well as to wash away residue produced during chip etching. Even the tiniest water impurities can damage the chips.

“Our work starts with NASA, but the beachhead market here on Earth is in ultrapure water production for semiconductors,” Straub said. “This is a huge potential market, and we have filed a provisional patents with Venture Partners at CU Boulder.”

Straub is optimistic the grant will enable them to make significant progress in the coming months.

“This has been a four-year process, and at the beginning we didn’t know if it would work,” Straub said. “We started with theory and then went into the lab to test. The fabrication has gone through several iterations here in the CU labs. Now we are moving towards a commercial product, and the performance is impressive.”

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K-12 air quality research spotlighted by industry group

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 16:08:45 +0000

K-12 air quality research spotlighted by industry group Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/04/2024 - 10:08

Mark Hernandez's air quality research is being highlight by Chemical and Engineering News.

Hernandez is a professor in the Environmental Engineering Program and air quality expert.

The work being spotlighted by C&EN, which is a publication of the American Chemical Society, initially focused on reducing the spread of COVID-19 in Denver Schools during the pandemic. It later expanded beyond concerns of infectious diseases to helping to improve air quality in schools across the board.

Launched in 2022 with funding from the CDC, the project seeks to correlate air quality in classrooms with the number of student absences due to respiratory illness.

The study’s provided portable HEPA air purifiers to classrooms across Colorado. Hernandez and his team installed air quality monitors to measure how well the filters were performing. By the end of 2023, 369 schools were enrolled in the project and agreed to send the researchers anonymous data on student absences.

Read the full article at C&EN...

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Building Blocks

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 19:37:58 +0000

Building Blocks Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 07/31/2024 - 13:37

Prometheus Materials eyes expansion through increased production

Traditional cement production is responsible for about 7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a significant contributor to climate change.

So faculty at CU Boulder started developing a greener alternative. A Department of Defense-funded project launched in 2016 led to the creation of an eco-friendly cement with a minimal carbon footprint, emitting little to no carbon dioxide and recycling 95 percent of the water used in production.

In 2021, they made the move to commercialize the technology as Prometheus Materials. Founded by Associate Professors Sherri Cook, Mija Hubler and Wil Srubar of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, along with Jeff Cameron of biochemistry and CEO Loren Burnett, the Colorado-based company produces bio-concrete from the biomineralization of blue-green algae in a natural process similar to that which creates sea shells and coral reefs.

While initially focused on research and development, the company has since entered a commercialization phase, exploring the establishment of new facilities to transition from a single production line to multiple lines and to increase production, Hubler said.

“We’re in flux,” she said. “We’re dreaming bigger.”

Product development

Hubler said the “most exciting part” is that Prometheus Materials has successfully scaled production and launched a commercial product for the construction industry.

Initially, the team focused on assessing structural performance, particularly compressive strength. That led to the development of their inaugural product — the ProZero Bio-Block Masonry unit.

After constructing a pilot wall, the researchers put their ears to it and were met with a remarkable silence. Further tests confirmed the product’s efficacy in preventing sound from bouncing off or attenuating through walls. This discovery paved the way for another product, ProZero Sound Attenuation units. Potential uses include sound panels in large conference rooms and classrooms.

The researchers also evaluated the product’s suitability for pedestrian and parking surfaces, analyzing its response to environmental moisture. The outcomes were positive, prompting the development of a third product.

Proof points

Mija Hubler with the Prometheus algae-growing system.

But consumers can’t yet walk into a hardware store and buy a ProZero product off the shelf.

While Prometheus Materials has performed some pilot studies with large companies like Microsoft and has discussed potential applications for its products in Microsoft’s offices and warehouses, it will take years before the products will be available in places like Home Depot.

Hubler emphasized that the construction industry prefers “tried and true” materials and is cautious to adopt new ones. Larger construction firms play a crucial role in pioneering and embracing innovative products, serving as trailblazers to introduce these newer products into the market.

But there are multiple reasons why it’s the right time for the company to expand operations.

“The construction industry, building owners and developers are paying a lot more attention to carbon emissions, and our materials have reduced emissions,” Srubar said. “[Another] driver is the trend toward nature-based materials that don’t contain any ‘red list’ chemicals in them.”

Cook added that many companies have ambitious corporate sustainability goals but lack practical means to achieve them. Prometheus Materials provides a tangible avenue for these companies to start realizing their sustainability objectives.

Srubar echoed the strategic importance of working with these firms, whose teams of architects and engineers collaborate in designing and engineering structures using innovative materials.

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Climate change causing increase in metals concentrations in streams

Anonymous — Fri, 24 May 2024 22:45:43 +0000

Climate change causing increase in metals concentrations in streams Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/24/2024 - 16:45

Diane McKnight's alpine stream research is highlighted in a new article published in the Aspen Times.

The piece focuses on newly published research demonstrating climate-driven increases in stream metal concentrations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, including Lincoln Creek above Aspen.

McKnight, a distinguished professor in the Environmental Engineering Program and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, is an expert on aquatic ecology and the interactions between hydrologic, chemical and biological processes in aquatic systems.

McKnight has been measuring the pH levels of the upper Snake River in Summit County for decades. On a recent trip with students, a stream that usually had a pH level of about 4 measured 2.75, meaning the acidity had greatly increased.

“I said: Wait, the probe must be wrong, the probe must be broken,” she said. “Guess what, the probe was not broken. … The public should be aware the world is changing, and there are surprises.”

Read the full article at the Aspen Times...

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CU Boulder leading effort to improve water quality in Rockies’ rivers

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 21:50:45 +0000

CU Boulder leading effort to improve water quality in Rockies’ rivers Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/04/2024 - 15:50

Jeff Zehnder

Video: How the Mortenson Center at CU Boulder is Improving Water Security

Kat Demaree and Jason Quinn installing an in-situ water quality tool with multiple sensors providing near-continuous measurements of turbidity, chlorophyl-a, conductivity, and fluorescing dissolved organic matter (fDOM) along the Yampa River near Steamboat Springs.

Using machine learning for better water quality

�鶹��Ƶ and Colorado State University researchers are teaming up to improve river water quality in the Rockies.

A team led by Environmental Engineering Professor Evan Thomas has received a $650,000 Convergence Accelerator grant from the National Science Foundation, to measure and mitigate pollution in the Cache la Poudre and Yampa Rivers in Colorado through new sensor technology, monitoring, and a voluntary carbon credits trading system with industry.

The Convergence Accelerator grant complements other Thomas-led initiatives also working to improve water quality. The work has also been funded by the Moore Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. Thomas was influential in scoping the $160 million dollar NSF funded Colorado-Wyoming Regional Innovation Engine, and recently received a United States Congressional earmark directed-grant from NASA also targeted at the Yampa and Poudre rivers.

Thomas has been working with Colorado State Senators Cleave Simpson and Jeff Bridges, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to advance legislation that could accelerate watershed restoration in Colorado by pairing wastewater utility water quality obligations under the Clean Water Act with restorative programs.

A central component of these projects is the use of ongoing, instream water quality measurements that will allow the team the ability to trace back negative changes, said Thomas, who also serves as director of the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience.

“Typically, this work is done with point-in-time measurements when someone goes out and manually takes a sample, which is very expensive and infrequent. These new sensors we have are robust and durable and will allow us to do things continuously,” Thomas said.

The sensor data, enabled by a partnership with Fort Collins based sensor company In-Situ, will be fed into a machine learning system to develop predictive models that can track pollution and determine sources.

“Machine learning and AI aren’t new, but we’re applying these techniques in a place they haven’t been applied before – managing watersheds and enabling climate finance to pay for ongoing performance,” Thomas said.

Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, a professor of environmental engineering at CU Boulder and co-investigator on the project, said the grant builds on a wealth of earlier research.

"I am excited about taking all we have learned about wildfires and water quality and focusing now on how we can proactively work with communities to limit these impacts and the stresses they have on water infrastructure," Rosario-Ortiz said.

Being able to track back pollution sources has been a long-sought goal of environmental

Evan Thomas

researchers. While it is simple to monitor pollution coming from fixed-point sources, like the outlet of a wastewater treatment plant, it is much harder to analyze diffuse sources, like runoff from industrial agriculture, mining, or forestry operations.

“It has been a technology barrier, and regulators have been reluctant to approve water quality projects that are hard to measure,” Thomas said. “We hope to change this. We’re working with landowners, stakeholders, and cities to make positive changes for restorative agriculture, irrigation, and wildfire management.”

In addition to water researchers at CU Boulder and CSU, the team has built a network of outside partners, including the cities of Steamboat Springs and Fort Collins, Friends of the Yampa, and Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed, as well as Virridy Inc., a CU Boulder spinout company that develops global water security programs.

A second key part of the project is a voluntary carbon market that aims to build industry investment in green infrastructure to improve water quality. Although the project is just getting underway, Mortenson Construction has already purchased $2 million in credits through it. Thomas said this market could generate as many as 1.6 billion carbon credits per year.

Thomas has been involved in large scale drinking water treatment carbon credit programs in Africa over the last 15 years, reaching over 5 million people with improved water security. This represents the first major effort in the United States.

“This is a way for industry and companies to demonstrate to shareholders and customers they’re committed to climate impact,” Thomas said. “It takes local water problems and brings them into the global market, creating business opportunities.”

In addition to Thomas and Rosario-Ortiz, the team at CU Boulder includes Kat Demaree, environmental engineer and doctoral student. At Colorado State University, the effort is being led by Matt Ross, an assistant professor of ecosystem science and sustainability, and Jason Quinn, a professor of mechanical engineering. Also involved in the project is Krister Andersson, a sustainable development professor at Notre Dame who previously was a CU Boulder faculty member.

Using machine learning for better water quality. �鶹��Ƶ and Colorado State University researchers are teaming up to improve river water quality in the...

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Scientists advocate for policies regulating indoor air

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 20:19:25 +0000

Scientists advocate for policies regulating indoor air Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/01/2024 - 14:19

A group of international experts, including CU Boulder’s Jose-Luis Jimenez, CIRES Fellow and distinguished chemistry professor, and Shelly Miller, mechanical engineering professor, presented a blueprint for national indoor quality standards for public buildings, in a paper published today in Science.

“The science is very clear that improving indoor air quality would have enormous health benefits by reducing both disease transmission and indoor pollution,” Jimenez said. “But we think that will only happen with legally binding standards.”

The authors addressed setting standards for three key indoor pollutants: carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), and PM2.5, which are particles that can lodge deep in the lungs and enter the bloodstream. In addition to the three pollutants, the authors suggest a fourth standard surrounding ventilation rates.

Jimenez and Miller, along with lead author Lidia Morawska, a distinguished professor at Queensland University of Technology, are internationally known for leading the appeal to the World Health Organization (WHO) to recognize the airborne transmission of COVID-19 early in the pandemic. The group has continued to study and publish papers about indoor air quality in public spaces.

“Indoor air in public buildings is a shared public good, just like outdoor air or drinking water,” said Miller. “To protect public goods from exploitation by polluters who may disregard human health impacts it is critical to provide guidelines and standards, which we have for outdoor air and drinking water.”

The authors recommend that indoor air quality standards be incorporated into the design of new buildings, or in the retrofitting of old structures— which will not be cheap.

“While there is a cost in the short term, the social and economic benefits to public health, wellbeing, and productivity will likely far outweigh the investment in cost in achieving clean indoor air,” Morawska said.

The authors wrote that initial progress could be simple and cost-effective: CO₂sensors are readily available, inexpensive, and robust and could be used as a proxy for the presence of exhaled pathogens such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and for the accumulation of indoor chemical pollutants.

If policymakers respond to the scientists’ call to action, Jimenez knows change won’t happen overnight.

“What we are talking about is going to take a generation,” Jimenez said. “Just as it took many decades to provide clean water after the discovery that cholera was waterborne in the 1850s.”

This story was adapted from Queensland University of Technology’s press release.

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Can air purifiers help keep kids in school? New study seeks to find out

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 19:42:51 +0000

Can air purifiers help keep kids in school? New study seeks to find out Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/27/2023 - 13:42

Engineers at CU Boulder kicked off a new project this month that aims to investigate whether improving classroom air quality with air purifiers can help students miss fewer school days. The study comes at a time when millions of students across the country are chronically absent from school, a worsening trend that could have large impacts on students’ academic performance.

Mark Hernandez, the SJ Archuleta Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, is co-leading the project with researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus with a $2.2 million grant the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded this month.

Over the past four months, Hernandez and his team, including eight engineering students, helped install air quality monitors in 2,400 classrooms across Colorado’s K-12 schools. These monitors can provide teachers, school officials and researchers with real-time data on classroom temperature, humidity, CO2 and air pollutant levels.

Mark Hernandez (Credit: CU Boulder)

The team also helped install air cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters in tens of thousands of classrooms statewide. These commonly available air purifiers can effectively filter out air pollutants—such as particulate matter from vehicle exhaust and wildfire smoke—that can trigger negative respiratory reactions and remove airborne pathogens like the coronavirus. The team will compare student absenteeism rates in classrooms with air purifiers with those without.

“Linking positive student outcomes to affordable air quality interventions has yet to be done on a large epidemiological scale,” said Hernandez. “I am thankful our flagship engineering college and public health school was chosen by CDC to team up for this work as a national model.”

An epidemic of absenteeism

During the 2022–23 school year, over a third of Colorado K-12 students were chronically absent—defined as missing 10% of the school days in a year. That’s up from one in five students before the pandemic. Students are absent from school for a myriad of reasons—bullying, transportation problems and financial hardship—and asthma stands out as the leading cause of absenteeism due to chronic illness.

Funded by Colorado’s Ryan Innovation Fund, Hernandez started testing air purifiers in Denver Public School (DPS) classrooms in 2020, in an effort to help reopen schools under better conditions during the pandemic.

“When the pandemic broke out, there were a lot of people introducing air purifiers in classrooms. But many of the purifiers weren't sized correctly, didn’t work well or were too loud. No one had systematically assessed the purifiers’ performance in actual educational settings at this scale” Hernandez said.

In 2021, Hernandez and his team installed air purifiers coupled with air quality monitors in 20 public elementary school buildings with funding from the Intel Corporation and the Carrier Company. Most of the schools are located along the I-25 and I-70 highways, and their proximity to high-traffic corridors and industrial zones increases students’ exposure to air pollution, which could worsen the effects of COVID-19. In some of these schools, more than 20% of the students have asthma.

Mark Hernandez (middle) and his students installed air quality monitors and purifiers in Colorado classrooms. (Credit: The Hernandez lab)

The pilot trial’s data showed that the purifiers, when working properly, were effective in improving classroom ventilation and reducing air pollutants. Impressed by the results, DPS funded Hernandez’s team to extend the program to 800 classrooms in 100 schools in 2021.

In 2022, Hernandez received a $5.5 million grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to expand the work state-wide into a new program called Clean Air for Schools. The additional CDC grant will allow the team to continue monitoring air quality in Colorado classrooms and investigate if there is a connection between air purifier operations, ventilation performance and student attendance.

“Until COVID-19, nobody really did anything about air quality in classrooms except in response to extreme weather conditions. Many political leaders and agency decision-makers projected systemic air quality improvements to be too expensive,” Hernandez said.

An inexpensive, but powerful solution

Hernandez estimates that effectively reducing airborne particles in indoor air pollution with air purifiers would cost $65 per student, per classroom, per year.

“Installing a couple of air purifiers in a classroom is cheaper than a textbook, but schools are always strapped for money. Now we have data that shows these commonly available appliances, which don’t disrupt teaching, can be systematically prioritized. It’s well worth it in both the immediate and long term,” Hernandez said.

CU Boulder students set up air monitors in a classroom. (Credit: The Hernandez lab)

The project has a huge community and educational impact, Hernandez added. He is proud of the students and contractors who worked day and night to install the air monitors in thousands of classrooms over the past summer. Many of the young researchers working on the project are first-generation college students who come from communities disproportionately affected by air pollution and COVID-19. Studies have found that Black and Hispanic students have the highest asthma rates in the U.S.

“A few of my students actually attended these schools near the industrial zones, and they are able to give back to the community with their education,” Hernandez said. The diverse group of students will continue to track the data and analyze air quality’s impact on absenteeism using the new grant.

“While I’m an engineer, I’m also an educator. Through this project, I get to work with our engineering students and watch them increase their skills and competence and advance their educational potential while doing something good for the community. This is one of the most rewarding projects I've had in nearly 30 years here at CU,” Hernandez said.

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CU Boulder water quality expertise goes international in Armenia

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 15:03:30 +0000

CU Boulder water quality expertise goes international in Armenia Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/07/2023 - 09:03

Jeff Zehnder

Above: Carlo Salvinelli and Kat Demaree reviewing equipment with a representative from Armenia.
Header Photo: The CU Boulder Team and Armenian representatives on the shore of Lake Sevan.

Program Goals/Objectives

The five-year USAID “Armenia Improved Water Management for Sustainable Economic Growth” Program is implemented by "Deloitte Consulting" jointly with the the Urban Foundation for Sustainable Development, the �鶹��Ƶ and REC Caucasus.

The Program seeks to transform Armenia’s approach to water management to improve the equity of access to water while maintaining environmental flow and water quality for the protection of freshwater resources.

It involves the development and dissemination of improved approaches and tools to support sustainable and secure water management; advancing improved water governance; and spreading best practices and innovative approaches in water conservation and use.

The Program’s technical activities encompass the following objectives:

Apply advanced technologies and tools to support sustainable and secure water management
Improve water governance
Promote and scale best practices and innovative approaches in water conservation and use to increase equitable access to water resources
Prepare for regional cooperation with neighboring countries
Improve access to water

�鶹��Ƶ researchers are advancing water resource management in the South Caucasus through a partnership with Deloitte Consulting.

The professional services firm is implementing a US Agency for International Development Armenia activity titled Armenia Improved Water Management for Sustainable Economic Growth program and is tapping CU Boulder’s environmental engineering technical expertise to improve river, lake, and groundwater management in the former Soviet Bloc country.

Deloitte has a longstanding relationship with CU Boulder that includes the joint Climate Innovation Collaboratory, founded last year. On the Armenia activity, Deloitte issued to CU Boulder researchers a five-year, $641,000 subcontract.

“We’re making recommendations on technology and methods that can improve Armenia’s water resources,” said Evan Thomas, an associate professor, director of the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience and the principal investigator on the contract.

At Deloitte, their Chief of Party Armen Varosyan said the overall project represents a major opportunity for Armenia.

“We are excited for the potential to bring innovative international technology solutions to Armenia’s water sector,” Varosyan said.

Much of Armenia’s current water infrastructure dates back to its time as part of the Soviet Union. Thomas and a team of CU Boulder researchers recently returned from a 10-day trip to the country, where they met stakeholders and visited key sites, including Lake Sevan, the largest body of water in Armenia.

“It’s a gorgeous country. It’s not dissimilar from Colorado, with mountainous areas and a lot of agriculture,” said Kat Demaree, a project manager and CU Boulder environmental engineering PhD student who was part of the delegation.

Outflow from Lake Sevan is a key source of hydroelectric power and water for agriculture in the country, and was one focus of the visit.

“The lake water level has declined significantly because of overuse,” Demaree said. “Historically there’s not a ton of monitoring of water sources there. They want to better understand how much water they have, where it’s going, who is using it, and how it’s being used.”

Those are important questions familiar to water resource managers all over the world. Demaree said emerging technology makes finding the answers much easier than before.

“They have similar issues that we do here in Colorado – overpumping, overuse. We have software now to help people make decisions and look into the impact of building new infrastructure, new reservoirs, new diversions. We can model the effects of regulations. In Armenia we did a training on Riverware, a modeling program developed at CU Boulder,” she said.

In addition to leveraging engineering expertise, the team is also hoping to boost engineering education in Armenia. They met with faculty at multiple universities there to discuss potential collaborations.

“We want to help build classroom modules and credits specific to the needs of students there, things like water management in agriculture,” Demaree said.

The ultimate goal is to expand the country’s homegrown population of engineers.

As the program progresses, the team will be working to develop relationships with experts in the country, map out official recommendations, and implement infrastructure pilot projects.

“There are a lot of different technology options and solutions, and everything has advantages and disadvantages,” Thomas said. “We’re really working to build partnerships, to build those connections in Armenia to offer the right solutions that will work for them.

Additional CU Boulder faculty researchers involved in the project include Karl Linden,Amy Javernick-Will, and Carlo Salvinelli, all from the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering.

�鶹��Ƶ researchers are advancing water resource management in the South Caucasus through a partnership with Deloitte Consulting. The professional services firm is is tapping CU Boulder’s environmental engineering technical expertise to improve river, lake, and groundwater management in the...

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Three years in: What we’ve learned about COVID

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 15:57:36 +0000

Three years in: What we’ve learned about COVID Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/08/2023 - 08:57

Three years ago this week, Colorado recorded its first known cases of COVID-19. A week later, on March 12, CU Boulder announced its first positive case and quickly shifted to fully remote classes.

Meanwhile, researchers at CU and universities across the country jumped into action to learn everything they could about the virus, including how to test for and trace it; how to prevent its spread; and how to develop a vaccine to reduce its death toll.

Today, the pandemic and its impacts persist. While deaths in the U.S. are down significantly from peaks in previous years, in 2023 COVID-19 still kills more than 3,500 people each week and tens of millions still struggle with serious, lasting health effects.

Yet we know more than ever before about the virus and how to stop the next pandemic before it starts. Here’s a look at what CU Boulder researchers learned in year three.

COVID-19 is still a public health threat—but we can end it

While the U.S. federal public health emergency is set to expire on May 11, it is still a global public health threat and continues to disproportionately impact vulnerable populations around the world, according to 386 multidisciplinary experts from more than 100 countries and territories.

The authors of a Nature paper published in November recommended countries take a “vaccine-plus” approach to end the pandemic, including improved indoor air ventilation and filtration, increased masking, testing and treatment. They also emphasized a need to address the global inequities involved in access to vaccinations and healthcare.

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 is not yet over,” said Jose-Luis Jimenez, co-author of the study, distinguished professor of chemistry at CU Boulder and fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). “But there are many things we can and should be doing about it here in the U.S. and across the world, and a high priority should be paying attention to and taking action by cleaning our indoor air.”

Jimenez and environmental engineering professor Shelly Miller are also co-authors on a recent publication in Clinical Infectious Diseases, which argues that the World Health Organization (WHO) dismissed scientists’ concerns at the start of the pandemic that the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads through airborne particles (which float in the air like smoke), leading to avoidable consequences that can be learned from.

Read: COVID still a ‘dangerous global health threat.’ New international study spells out how we can end it

Take more care in drier air

Recent CU Boulder research has found that airborne particles carrying coronavirus can remain infectious for twice as long in drier air, in part because the saliva emitted with them serves as a protective barrier around the virus, especially at low humidity levels.

“It shows this virus can hang around for quite a while—hours, even,” said Mark Hernandez, senior author of the study and S. J. Archuleta Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

This first-of-its kind study published in PNAS Nexus carries implications for mitigating transmission of coronavirus, as well as other viruses, in drier climates across the country, as well as in airplane cabins and during dry winter months worldwide.

Humidifying indoor spaces is expensive and inefficient, however, said Hernandez. Instead, adding high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) air filters, opening windows and improving ventilation are all easy and affordable measures anyone can implement.

Read: Tend to get sick when the air is dry? New research helps explain why

Given a moment to think, people choose to lower risks

When people simply take a moment to reflect on the consequences of their behavior, they tend to choose options that impose fewer risks on other people, according to research from Leaf Van Boven, professor of psychology and neuroscience.

The international study of 13,000 people, published in November in PNAS Nexus, was conducted at the height of the pandemic. Van Boven and his colleagues presented the global participants with hypothetical scenarios related to joining social gatherings during the pandemic, for which they had to decide to attend, cancel, or reduce capacity.

But before they did so, some participants were instructed to pause and practice a technique called “structured reflection.” Those in the structured reflection group were significantly more likely to err on the side of minimizing public health risks.

As COVID-19 restrictions lift, such personal responsibility will grow increasingly important.

“I would encourage everyone to develop a habit of asking themselves when they are considering any sort of large social gathering: What is the risk you might impose on other people, and is the benefit of the gathering worth the risk?” said Van Boven.

Read: Got the sniffles? Here’s how to make the right decision about holiday gatherings

Students stepped up at CU and across the country

A study in BMC Public Health from researchers at CU Boulder, Colorado State University (CSU) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than 90% of people on CU Boulder and CSU campuses wore masks correctly amid the pandemic during spring 2021. The new research indicates that students understood masks’ effectiveness, knew masking helped them take more classes in person and generally care about the health of others.

“The study supports the idea that masks are an effective, low-cost measure to reduce disease transmission and establishes masking as a viable way to reduce respiratory disease transmission on college campuses,” says Tanya Alderete, assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology at CU Boulder and a principal investigator of the project.

Read: Vast majority of students were up for the mask

Germicidal ultraviolet light remains a useful tool

A study led by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and CU Boulder has helped shine a light on another approach to disinfecting our shared indoor air: germicidal ultraviolet light (GUV), which can inactivate airborne pathogens but also has potential to create an unhealthy indoor “smog.”

Published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the work found that after GUV disinfection, the amount of harmful secondary chemicals in indoor air have an impact, but are not so detrimental as to recommend against the use of GUV. This suggests that GUV can be used to fight COVID, as well as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), in environments at high risk of virus transmission, such as emergency waiting rooms, restaurants and gyms.

Read: Destroying Coronavirus vs. Creating Indoor Smog

Working to prevent the next pandemic

CU Boulder virologist Sara Sawyer’s career was inspired by the defining pandemic of her childhood: the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, she has spent her time trying to prevent the next one.

Sawyer has spent the last 15 years gathering hundreds of samples from primate, rodent, bat and other mammalian species to better understand what evolution has taught them about how to live with viruses. In her lab at CU Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute, she also employs cutting-edge genetic sequencing and lab techniques to better understand why when some viruses jump into new species, some succeed, and others fizzle out.

Her lab’s research has found that genetics plays a role, not only in how viruses spread within the same species, but also how they jump from species to species, including to people.

In September, she and her colleagues identified an obscure family of viruses, already endemic in wild African primates and known to cause Ebola-like symptoms in some monkeys, that is, as they put it, “poised for spillover” to humans. While no human infections have been reported to date, she urges the scientific community to be vigilant.

“COVID is just the latest in a long string of spillover events from animals to humans, some of which have erupted into global catastrophes,” Sawyer said. “Our hope is that by raising awareness of the viruses that we should be looking out for, we can get ahead of this, so that if human infections begin to occur, we’re on it quickly.”

Read: Virus Hunter, Preventing the Next Pandemic

Diet and lifestyle factors might reduce disease risks

Besides avoiding infection and reducing transmission, what can people do?

Feeding our gut microbes with healthy foods, spices and antioxidants, as well as addressing our stress and balancing physical activity with adequate recovery are some actions we can take to give ourselves a chance at less severe outcomes and full recovery following infection, said Barbara Demmig-Adams, professor of distinction and director of the EBIO Honors Program within the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Demmig-Adams is co-author on a study published last year in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, detailing how the human body is predisposed to chronic, low-level inflammation—which puts us at a biological disadvantage when fighting off the virus that causes COVID-19.

Due to our bodies’ inflammatory responses, she notes that we should be just as careful about overexerting our bodies as not moving them enough. If you are actively sick or recently recovered, it may be wise to schedule in more rest and recovery time than anticipated.

Read: 4 easy ways to reduce your risk of severe COVID-19

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Tend to get sick when the air is dry? New research helps explain why

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 23:58:49 +0000

Tend to get sick when the air is dry? New research helps explain why Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/23/2023 - 16:58

Recent research from CU Boulder may have finally revealed why humans tend to get sick from airborne viral diseases more often in drier environments.

Published in December in PNAS-Nexus, the study found that airborne particles carrying a mammalian coronavirus closely related to the virus which causes COVID-19 remain infectious for twice as long in drier air, in part because the saliva emitted with them serves as a protective barrier around the virus, especially at low humidity levels.

The study carries major implications for not only the current COVID-19 pandemic but potentially for all infectious diseases transmitted by saliva-coated viruses. The research also further emphasizes the importance of managing indoor air filtration and ventilation to mitigate airborne disease spread, especially for buildings in arid states such as Colorado, dry enclosed environments such as airplane cabins and during dry winter months in temperate climates worldwide.

“The physics of the air in our buildings and the climate in which we live affect things that can make us sick and how long they persist. Now we have conservative indications of how long coronaviruses like the one that causes COVID-19 can stick around in the air and be an infectious disease threat,” said Mark Hernandez, senior author and S. J. Archuleta Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

In 2020, Hernandez had a hunch that both relative humidity and saliva were important factors in the transmission of the novel virus sweeping the globe. He also happened to run the Environmental Engineering Microbiology and Disinfection Lab, one of the country’s only full-scale bioaerosol labs ready and able to take on the challenge at the start of the pandemic.

Professor Mark Hernandez and doctoral graduate Marina Nieto-Caballero stand inside a bioaerosol chamber in the Environmental Engineering disinfection laboratory at the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Complex (SEEC). Photo by Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder.

Civil engineers design and operate buildings in the U.S. to maintain an indoor relative humidity between about 40% and 60%. In the real world, however, these percentages vary more widely. In San Francisco for example, where Hernandez grew up, the relative humidity pushes a dewy 60%. In comparison, Colorado hovers at an arid 25%.

Unique bioaerosol lab, dedicated students made COVID research possible

As one of the first interdisciplinary bioaerosol labs established in the U.S., the Environmental Engineering Microbiology and Disinfection Lab at CU Boulder is home to one of the biggest bioaerosol chambers in the country at an academic institution. At about 350 cubic feet, it provides a large experimental space that realistically mimics the indoor environments people live, work and play in every day...Read more.

So they released virus-laden, airborne particles into several state-of-the-art, sealed chambers—the largest one about the size of a large bathroom—both with and without saliva, and at 25%, 40% and 60% relative humidity. They found the saliva acted as a protective mechanism for the virus regardless of the humidity level. At both 40% and 60% relative humidity, half of the airborne coronavirus particles were still infectious after aging for one hour in the chamber. But at 25% humidity, that time doubled: Half of the original particles released into the chamber remained infectious for two hours.

“It shows this virus can hang around for quite a while—hours, even. It's longer than a class, longer than the time you're in a restaurant, longer than the time you take to hang out in the cafe. An occupant may come in, spread coronavirus in the air, and leave. Depending on architectural factors, then someone else could walk into that space with potent doses still hanging around,” said Hernandez.

As the virus can remain infectious in the air longer than it takes most ventilation systems to remove it, additional air-focused mitigation measures such as filtration are required to reduce transmission, the study suggests.

“I hope this paper has an engineering impact in our buildings, for example, in schools and hospitals, so we can minimize the infectivity of these viruses in the air,” said Marina Nieto-Caballero, lead author, who earned her doctorate in the Hernandez bioaerosol lab in 2021 and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University.

Colored sample media is used to demonstrate aerosolization of the particles in the chamber. Photo by Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder.

Marina Nieto-Caballero, CU graduate and now a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University, assesses the infectious potential of airborne murine coronavirus using computer aided microscopy. Photo by Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder.

Using saliva for science

Temperature, light and relative humidity can all affect how long a viral particle remains infectious, but until now, no study had accounted for the fluids that carry them. Yet people are always producing saliva and emitting tiny particles into the air every time they talk, laugh or even sing, said Hernandez.

The team used medical-grade fake saliva to mimic those particles and turned to chemistry professor Magaret Tolbert to examine samples of saliva-protected virus under a typical microscope on flat plates, as well as with a special microscope that measures them in air.

Together, they found it’s not the proteins in saliva—as hypothesized by other scientists—that allow the virus to persist so well in drier air, but its sugary carbohydrates that stabilize them. While many types of airborne particles, such as common salt particles, crystallize in lower relative humidity, the saliva particles became gelatinous, even glassy, said Tolbert.

The researchers suspect it is this physical state, somewhere between solid and liquid, that provides the virus extra protection and allows it to linger longer in dry air.

Hernandez hopes the findings can help open the door for more “messy” research using more realistic scenarios to better understand airborne particles.

“Let's get more real about how we test things in the lab. Let's use saliva. Let's use lung fluids. Let's use blood. It's scary, and it's more expensive. But without that data, we don't know,” said Hernandez

Research in dry climates, for dry climates

Coloradans are among the 100 million Americans who live in a dry climate and who could, as a result, be at increased exposure risk indoors for airborne viruses such as coronavirus.

While more research is needed, this study could partially explain why Colorado was one of 16 states with a "very high" rate of influenza-like illnesses last November, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But what can those of us who live or spend time in drier environments do?

While it may be worth increasing relative humidity indoors to at least 40%, humidifying indoor spaces is expensive and inefficient, said Hernandez.

“Instead, we can add simple, inexpensive air filters that will take particles out of the air faster. We can increase the ventilation rate, open windows, and make sure we get more fresh air through,” said Hernandez. “We've known this from the beginning, but this research gives us a target.”

Additional authors on this paper include: Odessa Gomez and Margaret Tolbert of CU Boulder; Shuichi Ushijima of CU Boulder and CIRES; Ryan Davis and Erik Huynh of Trinity University; Eddie Fuques of Oregon State University; and Alina Handorean of the Colorado School of Mines.

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