Nutrient Recovery from Agricultural Wastewater by Integrated Electrokinetic Processes

<p>Agricultural wastewater including anaerobic digestate is annually generated in a huge quantity in Taiwan. The management of agricultural wastewater should be emphasized on the recovery and production of value-added resources, such as macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), for realizing the circular bioeconomy. In this paper, we will illustrate the development of energy-efficient electrokinetic processes for nutrient recovery from agricultural wastewater. First, we evaluate the performance of electrokinetic separations processes for recovery of macronutrients. We also discuss major challenges in managing nutrient reuse by the developed electrokinetic methods. Then, we elucidate the process chemistry and reaction kinetics by the processes. Lastly, we consider the interconnectivity among water, energy and the produced macronutrients in the context of large-scale deployment.</p>

Extraction of electrokinetically separated analytes with on-demand encapsulation

On-demand two-phase encapsulation of electrokinetically separated analytes decouples electrokinetic separations from downstream analytical processes.

Dyneon THV, a fluorinated thermoplastic as a novel material for microchip capillary electrophoresis

In this work, we have investigated Dyneon THV, a fluorinated material, as a new material to afford electrokinetic separations in microfluidic devices.

An Automated Valve for Dispersion Control in On-Chip Electrophoresis

Band dispersion and sample loss into a side channel is a major problem when an electrokinetically-mobilized concentration zone passes a T-junction in a networked microfluidic chip. The band dispersion can be minimized in linear electrophoretic systems such as zone electrophoresis and moving boundary electrophoresis by applying a constant additional electric field in the side channel. However, constant valve voltages have shown to provide unsatisfactory valve performance during nonlinear electrophoresis (isotachophoresis). In this study, an automated valve system was developed to reduce the band dispersion at the intersection during non-linear electrophoresis. The automated valve consists of two integrated microelectrodes and a control system. With the automated control system, two integrated microelectrodes provide an effective way to manipulate current streamlines, thus acting as a non-mechanical valve for charged species in electrokinetic separations. Experimental results with this non-mechanical valve show decreased dispersion and increased reproducibility as protein zones isotachophoretically passed the T-junction.