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Speaker: Onur G. Apul, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, UMaine
Having access to drinking water is a basic human right. However, billions of people around the world still lack access to safe drinking water. Even in the most industrialized nations, safe and sustainable drinking water supply is far from being accomplished. Modern day water catastrophes such as the lead crisis in Flint, the global microplastics and PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) crises emphasize how vulnerable our engineered water systems are. Many of the most commonly applied water treatment technologies still rely on Victorian era processes such as sand filtration i.e., processes that are not designed to undertake the challenges of the complex technical and social issues currently threatening our drinking water. Therefore, there is an urgent need for developing robust, safe, resilient and sustainable water treatment technologies. Over the last two decades, we have witnessed the rise of nanotechnology with the ability to tune and visualize materials at an atomic level. In this presentation, Onur will discuss some of the solutions that nanotechnology offers to current drinking water issues that are insurmountable using traditional approaches.
Onur Apul is an assistant professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maine. Prior to his appointment, he was an assistant professor in Environmental Engineering at UMass Lowell. He earned his Ph.D. in 2014 in Environmental Engineering at Clemson University, SC. In 2013, his work received the prestigious L.G. Rich Award from the Water Environment Association. In 2015 and 2017, he received the Highly-Cited-Author Recognition by Elsevier’s Water Research Journal. In 2017 and 2018, he received UMass Lowell’s Chancellor Recognition for “highest number of publications and creative works”. In 2019, he received the “Outstanding Teacher Award” from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) – Student Chapter. Dr. Apul has published more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and submitted 5 patent applications to date. He has given 50 presentations including invited keynote lectures and invited talks at national and international meetings. He is a guest editor of Nanomaterials and a member of American Chemical Society, Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization, and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.