$1.4 Million Grant Project to Develop Methods for Cleaning and Reusing Agricultural Water
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A scientist from the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) has been granted $1.4 million to develop strategies for cleaning and reusing agricultural water. For the project, UC Riverside Chemical and Environmental Engineering Professor Haizhou Liu, Ph.D. will lead a collaborative research team from several UC campuses.
The work will help meet the need for sustainable agricultural water use solutions while ensuring the microbial and chemical safety of reused water.
The grant will allow Dr. Liu and his team to develop methods to remove chemical pollutants and pathogens from wastewater supplies, and will enable Dr. Liu to expand on his previous work developing approaches to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from polluted water sources.
In 2022, Dr. Liu published a breakthrough study showing how the stubbornly strong fluorine-to-carbon chemical bonds in PFAS compounds can be broken using a combination of hydrogen and short-wavelength ultraviolet (UV) light. Earlier in 2024, Dr. Liu’s team demonstrated how briny wastewater containing PFAS can be treated using UV and chemical reactions catalyzed by naturally occurring salts in wastewater.
On the new project, Dr. Liu will work with scientists at UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources extension centers.
The grant project will also test irrigation methods that balance water conservation with food production, evaluate soil health and microbial ecosystems under recycled water irrigation to ensure long-term viability, and develop on-farm management practices to prevent contaminant transfer to crops.
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