Hickenbottom wins AAEES 40 Under 40 award

CHEE associate professor Kerri Hickenbottom was named to the 40 Under 40 Recognition Program from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers for her work in environmental sciences, more specifically, water desalination.

Desalination – a technique that removes minerals and impurities from saltwater and brackish water – has grown more popular in Arizona as a viable solution to looming cuts in Colorado River water. 

Separating minerals from water requires breaking chemical bonds, which demands significant energy and costs. Leftover brine can also harm the environment if not discharged properly.

To speed desalination research and lower costs, Hickenbottom scaled smaller lab models for real-world environments.

“It's really challenging because there are a lot of outside drivers that we don't really see in the lab,” she said. “I work at these different scales, and then we use the data and the results that we get at the larger scales, which leads to more fundamental research questions.” 

Hickenbottom’s work includes a decentralized approach that reduces energy use for water processing and reclamation. 

“The idea is rather than having a centralized system with water from semiconductor [fabrication] and other large facilities, let’s create dedicated systems where we recover water on-site,” she said. “We can minimize the risk from a lot of these larger infrastructure systems by having smaller systems that are fit for purpose and tuned more accurately to the kind of contaminants that are removed.”