KSC’s Environmental Technology, EZVI, receives multiple Awards

• NASA Invention of the Year Award
• NASA Commercial Invention of the Year Award
• FLC Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer

Innovators to make presentations at upcoming conferences.

• EZVI to be featured at upcoming Fifth International Conference on Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds in Monterey, CA May 22-25.
  

Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has been notified by NASA Headquarters that the KSC/University of Central Florida developed technology “Zero-Valent Metal Emulsion for Reductive Dehalogenation of DNAPL-Phase Environmental Contaminants has won both the “NASA Invention of the Year Award” and the “Commercial Invention of the Year Award.” This is a major accomplishment for KSC because we now have won both of these prestigious awards in two of the past three years. The technology was invented by a NASA/UCF team which included Jacqueline Quinn, KT-D, and Kathy Brooks, TA-H2C. The technology development was an outgrowth from A STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) Project.

The innovators will also be awarded for excellence in technology transfer by the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) at the Annual FLC Conference in May in St. Paul, Minnesota the first week in May. This award recognizes laboratory employees who have accomplished outstanding work in the process of transferring a technology developed by a federal laboratory. Nominations are made by FLC Laboratory Representatives and judged by representatives from industry, state and local government, academia, and federal laboratories.

Representatives from KSC, including Ms. Quinn, will be making several presentations on current research and discoveries at the Fifth International Conference on Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds will be held May 22-25, 2006, in Monterey, California. Like the previous conferences in this series, it is sponsored and is being organized by Battelle and the focus of the conference is the innovative application of existing or new technologies/approaches to address the challenges of characterization, treatment, and monitoring of chlorinated and other recalcitrant compounds in various environmental media. Representatives from KSC will feature the Zero-Valent Metal Emulsion technologies, as well as other environmental technologies including an Emulsion for treating PCB’s in coatings in the exhibit hall at booth number ????.

Zero-Valent Metal Emulsion for Reductive Dehalogenation of DNAPLs

During the early history of the space program, the ground around Launch Complex 34 (LC-34) at Kennedy Space Center was polluted with chlorinated solvents used to clean Apollo rocket parts. Dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) were left untreated in the ground and contaminated water resources in the area. A DNAPL is a liquid that is denser than water and does not dissolve or mix easily in water. DNAPLs are a common cause of environmental contamination at thousands of DOE, DOD, NASA, and private industry facilities. The EPA has reported that DNAPLs are present at 60% to 70% of all sites on the Superfund National Priorities List. Current approaches for remediation of DNAPL source areas are either inefficient or slow (e.g. pump and treat) or costly (e.g. thermal treatment).

In response to this environmental contamination risk, NASA Kennedy Space Center developed Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron (EZVI) for the in-situ treatment of dense non-aqueous phase liquids, or DNAPLs. The EZVI is composed of a food-grade surfactant, biodegradable vegetable oil, water, and ZVI particles, which form emulsion particles that contain the ZVI in water surrounded by an oil-liquid membrane.

This technology is one of the few methods available that can treat the DNAPL source. EZVI also overcomes the limitations of current DNAPL treatment technologies by providing a method that is quick, effective, and cost-competitive. Benefits include direct treatment of the contaminant source, immobilizing contaminants, producing non-toxic and more easily degradable by-products, and its environmentally safe qualities.

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) signed five nonexclusive licenses with companies wanting to market and further develop EZVI.

Contact:
Dr. Jacqueline W. Quinn
(321) 867-8410
Jacqueline.W.Quinn@nasa.gov