Discover our research
The NEWT Testbeds provide our project teams feedback to improve performance and data to the safety and sustainability team to refine techno-economic analyses. Testbeds support our industrial partners via sponsored projects and serve NEWT’s educational and outreach goals.
Core Testbeds
Testbed
Location(s)
Focus
MobileNEWT
ASU
Drinking water with oxo-anion focus
NEWTSkid
Rice
Desalination focused on O&G produced water
DesaliNEWT*
UTEP*
Desalination of brackish groundwater and direct potable reuse of municipal wastewater
Humanitarian
Yale, UTEP*, ASU*
Solar Disinfection
NEWT-Accesible Testbeds
IPAB Partnership Testbed & Location
Water Focus & Sponser
Carbon block testbed
Ida, MI
NSF Certification challenge waters
Amway
Wastewater reuse
Scottsdale, AZ
El Paso, TX
Tertiary wastewater for Direct potable reuse
Nanotechnology Enabled Water Design Lab
(NEWDL)
Houston, TX
Pretreatment, desalination
DOW/WHI
Forward Osmosis (FO) system
Houston, TX
Salinity / O&G produced water
RTI
Applied Research Center
Boise, ID
Drinking & wastewater
Carollo Eng
Meet our team
Paul WesterhoffASU
Qilin LiRice
Shahnawaz SinhaASU
Eva DeemerUTEP
Naomi FuentesUndergrad Intern
NEWT Skid Research
Juan DonosoRice
Youngkun ChungRice
Sushanth AshokkumarRice
MobileNEWT
The MobileNEWT is an enclosed dual-axle trailer-based testbed, where nanomaterial integrated modular water treatment devices are designed, developed, and tested for drinking water application. It provides a platform to assess these technologies’ operational feasibility at the field settings and for extended operational periods. NEWT industrial partner collaborates with the MobileNEWT team to support field research and translate these technologies to real-world use.
- MobileNEWT provides feedback to help NEWT researchers to address fundamental questions, operational issues, and learn to design resilient water treatment systems
- It is fully equipped & operated with various operational and WQ sensors – for remote monitoring & assessment
- It demonstrates the operational feasibility of integrated, modular, nano-based water treatment technology at field setting and can compare them against other technologies already in the marketplace
- MobileNEWT team can also deploy an individual module to any location in assessing nano-based treatment to meet the industry’s needs & challenges
- MobileNEWT team would like to find opportunities to collaborate with NEWT industry partners to explore nano-based treatment as a cost-effective & sustainable technology to meet the industry’s immediate & future needs
It also provides support to public education and acceptance of nanotechnology in water treatment.
NEWTSkid
NEWTSkid provides an off-grid, mobile platform for collaborations involving evaluation and testing of new industrial water treatment technologies. This unique testbed is a skid-mounted, completely solar-powered, pilot-scale industrial wastewater treatment system with a maximum treatment capacity of 5 L/min. NEWTSkid can include pre- and post-treatment modifications and can be further adapted to integrate a range of advanced, modular water treatment units.
- Implement remote monitoring and automatic control
- Assess performance of NEWT’s selective electrodes and electrocatalysts;
- Technology transfer of NESMD (nanophotonics-enabled solar membrane distillation) technology (EDRC, KAAU, Localized Water Solutions, Solmem)
- Evaluation testbed potential of more NEWT technologies (e.g., Active fouling control and Trap-and-zap electrodes)
DesaliNEWT
DesaliNEWT END
- Electro-Nano Diffusion (END) desalination pilot from NEWT partner
MI-Systems - Long-term energy-competitive desalination of real brackish water
- Modeling multi-ionic transport
DesaliNEWT DPR
- Photovoltaic & Thermal (PVT) desal pilot unit
- Patented synergy from warming brackish feed and cooling panels
- Seeking industry collaborator for high-temp desalination
DesaliNEWT DPR
- High-recovery
zero-liquid-discharge direct potable reuse (DPR) - Startup fall 2020
- Leveraging $400k from Rec’s DWPR plus $400k cost-share and NEWT partner
- Integrating NEWT P1.8 electrocatalysis
Research with the desaliNEWT testbed platforms focuses on advancing desalination and direct potable reuse technologies by decreasing energy consumption, increasing water recovery efficiency, and addressing specific water quality challenges such as mineral scaling in desalination and denitrification in direct potable reuse.
- High-recovery zero-liquid-discharge direct potable reuse
- Startup summer 2020
- Leveraging $400k from Rec’s DWPR plus $400k cost-share and NEWT partner
NEWT Humanitarian Skid
- Recruiting UN Environment and UN Habitat to become deployment partners of the center
- Collaborate with UN Environment and UN Habitat to install solar disinfection window unit to Ecological Living Modules
- Lay the groundwork for possible demonstration sites at UTEP and ASU
Research Highlights
Removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from groundwaters using activated carbon and ion exchange resin packed columns
Zeng, C Atkinson, A. Sharma, N. Ashani, H. Hjelmstad, A., Venkatesh, K. Westerhoff, P.
Student Spotlight
Naomi Fuentes“Working for NEWT this past year, as a research assistant, I’ve come to experience the research side of water treatment technologies. Under the supervision of Dr. Ibrahim Abdallah, I’ve delved in testing, maintaining and building various methods of desalination. Past projects like our solar membrane distillation system put into prospective the different ways renewable energy sources could be utilized. Currently, I am testing a system that can deionize water with carbon electrodes using a minimal amount of power. I am also working on a separate unit that can heat a system’s feed water above the surface of a membrane, delivering higher flux. Here at the testbed, I am part of a team dedicated to creating cost effective and environmentally safe desalination technologies.”
