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NSF Water Innovation Engine in the Great Lakes

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The NSF Water Innovation Engine in the Great Lakes (Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin), led by Current Innovation NFP, aims to discover, develop and deploy innovative key technologies that attract water-intensive manufacturers to the region, recover valuable energy and mineral resources from wastewater streams and foster workforce opportunities, all while maintaining environmental health.

Map of the region of service for the Great Lakes Water Innovation Engine: Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Addressing a critical U.S. need: The NSF Water Innovation Engine is geographically centered on an ecoregion that holds 90% of the fresh water in the United States. Forty million residents of the United States and Canada depend on this system for clean drinking water. Built on strong and evolving partnerships across academia, government and end users in industry and utilities, this NSF Engine aims to develop intelligent water resource recovery system test beds at multiple scales (bench, pilot and full) to demonstrate, integrate and deploy these novel technologies to support sustainable water-intensive industry that is growing in this region.

Year 1 impacts:

  • Accelerating Innovation: By building the first connected test bed network in the country for innovations in water technology, the NSF Water Innovation Engine is linking the capabilities of multiple industrial, research, municipal and field-scale piloting sites across the Great Lakes region to trial, derisk and commercialize promising solutions faster. Since it launched, the NSF Engine has awarded nearly $8.5 million in funding to 12 research and development projects, including efficient and selective separation of poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and critical minerals like cobalt and nickel and the real-time sensors and sensor networks needed to detect and recover these recovers.
  • Building partnerships: One year in, the NSF Engine's broad coalition of partners across six Great Lakes states has grown to more than 50 academic, community and industry stakeholders, including some of the nation's largest water and wastewater treatment facilities. Many are collaborating for the first time, connecting water innovation infrastructure, test beds, accelerators and investors all interested in supporting the development of water resource recovery technologies in the region.
  • Expanding and training the future workforce: With the goal of building up the region's 
    "blue economy," the NSF Engine is convening the Chicagoland Blue Jobs Collaborative, a network of partners focused on developing sustainable workforce programs for the water industry. The collaborative will map career paths both for immediate jobs and long-term career development, as well as develop programs for K-12 STEM education, higher education and adult education.

Additional Information

Lead organization: Current Innovation NFP (nonprofit).

Region of service: Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin (anchor nodes in urban and rural areas).

NSF award: NSF-2315268

Key technology areas
Advanced energy and industrial efficiency technologies, advanced materials, artificial intelligence.

 

NSF Water Innovation Engine website
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