Fresh urban water

Bringing Chemistry to Life

Great scientists look at the world around them, identify problems and think about how their area of expertise can provide a solution. This is what Jessica Ray does. In her native St. Louis, she experienced regular urban flooding and grew up familiar with the problem of managing urban wastewater. When, later in life, her studies took her to California, she experienced the opposite problem of severe droughts. This is how she became interested in urban water and started applying her chemical engineering skills to deal with the problem of contaminants, such as PFAS, in urban waste waters.

The theme of the unsustainability of our linear economy – where things are made, used and discarded - returns to the podcast. This episode explores Jessica’s disruptive work on the development of cost-efficient methods for the treatment of storm water and other urban water wastes. It’s a surprising discovery of a smart combination of everyday materials and clever chemistry that promises to bring us one step closer to a more sustainable circular economy.

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