The Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment has awarded the first round of funding, totaling more than $940,000, for major interdisciplinary research projects at the U. of I.
Two projects – an innovative water disinfection system and an approach to agriculture that involves woody plants as an alternative to conventional crops – will each receive more than $400,000 from the institute over the next three years. The third project, the development of stoves that use stored solar energy, will receive $140,000 over two years.
“Interdisciplinary research is a major part of what our institute was created to do, and that holistic approach is critical. We can build teams across campus for ‘actionable research’ – projects that can produce impactful and lasting real-world solutions,” said Evan DeLucia, the institute’s director. “This type of exploration was what Chancellor Phyllis Wise envisioned when our Institute was created.
“With the money we’re awarding today, we will begin shepherding projects in four of our five major research themes.”
“Smart Water Disinfection: A Holistic Approach from Benchside to Marketplace” fits into two of iSEE’s research themes: Water and Land Stewardship and Sustainable Infrastructure. The project is led by Benito J. Mariñas, a professor of and the interim department head of civil and environmental engineering.
Mariñas said the central ideas are to advance the understanding of pathogen infectivity, develop an innovative sensor to detect infective pathogens, and create sound business strategies to get the disinfection system into local markets.
“Smart disinfection systems with real-time sensors are critical in immediately detecting pathogens and removing contamination threats,” Mariñas said. “Our proposed holistic approach will finally enable truly sustainable solutions to the safe water challenges plaguing 780 million people, resulting in 1.8 million deaths and many millions more cases of chronic malnutrition each year worldwide.”
“Multifunctional Woody Polyculture for Sustainable Food Production” fits into the iSEE research theme of Secure and Sustainable Agriculture. Led by Sarah Taylor Lovell, a professor of crop sciences, the goal of the project is to evaluate layers of tree and hedge crops with perennial yields – instead of annual herbaceous crops – as an option to “meet growing demands for healthy foods while advancing the sustainability of food production systems in the United States and abroad.”
A new research farm, with several 1-acre plots, will be established to study the transition from conventional agriculture to a restored native ecosystem. Researchers also will compare the environmental, social and economic impact of perennial and annual farming.
Though improvements to our agricultural systems – such as cover crops, precision management and organic production – are being studied, “transformative solutions are needed to overcome critical challenges to the sustainability of food production,” Lovell wrote. Those challenges include a lack of resilience in normal crops, the loss of soil quantity and quality, the prevalence of inorganic chemicals in freshwater, deteriorating biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, “all of which are exacerbated by global climate change and growing domestic and global populations in need of a reliable food supply.”
“Solutions for the Global Cooking Problem: Developing Stored Solar Stoves” fits into iSEE’s Energy Transitions research theme. Bruce Elliott-Litchfield, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering, and fellow researchers will study what temperatures and physical configurations are needed for a stove that can be used at night without burning a fire, what means are feasible for energy concentration and collection, what storage innovations are preferable, and how best to recover and use the stored energy. The group will develop prototype cooking systems for field testing.
Outcomes from the research could “provide the basis for a generic energy solution that can be employed for multiple purposes beyond cooking – a dire need in poverty contexts around the world,” Elliott-Litchfield wrote in his proposal.
“We are quite excited about these three projects,” DeLucia said. “All three are expected to address very real problems this world faces with solutions that will help a growing population in a way that doesn’t continue to deplete Earth’s dwindling resources.”
The Institute, approved by the U. of I. Board of Trustees in December 2013, was created to foster cross-campus, interdisciplinary research into global sustainability, energy and environmental problems. By selecting these projects, iSEE is fulfilling the promise for one of its three major missions; the other two are campus sustainability, and education and outreach. DeLucia said the institute will make another request for proposals in the next academic year.
