With the goal of eliminating water contaminants that present challenges to communities worldwide, sustainability scientists and engineers Kiril Hristovski and Paul Westerhoff will work as part of a new national hub for research and innovation. The hub - funded through an EPA grant and known as the Design of Risk Reducing, Innovative Implementable Small System Knowledge (DeRISK) Center - will develop and test advanced, low-cost methods of reducing, controlling and eliminating common contaminants.

“The ultimate goal is to develop novel and sustainable technologies for photocatalytic water treatment that can move us closer toward using sunlight to convert nitrate and other contaminants to innocuous end-products without addition of any chemicals," said Hristovski, who will lead the ASU team. "Nanomaterials will play a central role in this research endeavor.”