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Kristina M. Johnson, who served as a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder from 1985 to 1999, has been awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Joe Biden.

At a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 3, Johnson and eight others received the nation’s highest honor recognizing exemplary achievement and leadership in science and technology.

Johnson distinguished herself through groundbreaking research in optoelectronics, photonics, and nanotechnology that led to 46 U.S. patents. Her innovations have contributed to advancements in the sustainable energy, manufacturing, quantum computing, and medical fields.

An engineer who grew up in Denver’s entrepreneurial environment, Johnson co-founded ColorLink, which focused on innovations in microdisplays and color polarizing technology. She was also the chief executive officer of Cube Hydro Partners, LLC, a clean energy company and a joint venture between a company she founded, Enduring Hydro, and a private equity firm.

Johnson’s career has included leading the National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center for Optoelectronic Computing Systems at ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder and ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ State University. She also served as undersecretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy during the Obama administration.

Johnson was the president of Ohio State University from 2020 to 2023. From 2017 to 2020, she was chancellor of the State University of New York. She’s been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Women’s Hall of Fame.

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Kian Lopez (L) and Anthony Straub (R) in the lab.

Anthony Straub is making major advances in water purification technology for industry and human consumption on Earth and in space, with his work on a nanotechnology membrane process taking a major step toward commercialization, thanks to a new NASA grant.

An assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder, Straub’s research focuses on using membranes to improve water treatment.

“The membrane technology that is widely used now is essentially half a century old, and it has well-known limitations,â€� Straub said. “ It works well for many applications, but it has a tendency to let certain impurities through and it degrades if exposed to certain harsh chemicals.â€�

NASA has awarded Straub and one of his PhD students, Kian Lopez, to develop a pilot water purification system for astronauts to use on a future Moon base.

Current space water purification systems are bulky and prone to repairs. The technology Straub’s lab has developed only requires a pump to pressurize water, reducing size and weight. Low weight is especially important in moon missions, where every kilogram of cargo can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“Current membranes remove impurities based on size and charge and, as a result, allow for small impurities to bypass the membrane,� Straub said. “What we’ve designed traps a very small layer of air inside a membrane and the only way for the water to cross the barrier is by evaporating and then re-condensing on the other side, which impurities inherently cannot do.�

The entire process occurs over a 100 nanometer span, a distance 160 times smaller than the width of a human hair, and the water that results is nearly pure H2O – distillation quality — since it has been turned to steam and then back to liquid.

These new membranes can be made from a wide variety of materials; the advance is in modifying them to create the air trapping layer. Although the work has been a longtime focus of Straub, he had not considered space applications or commercialization until Lopez returned from an internship at NASA.

Schematic of the membrane process.

“My mentor at NASA said this technology looks promising and the biggest impact we could have would be to start our own company,� Lopez said.

Straub and Lopez decided to attend the New Venture Launch class together in the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder Leeds Business School, participating in campus technology transfer initiatives, including the New Venture Challenge and Lab Venture Challenge. They founded in January of this year.

Space is but one application. Other potential is in municipal water systems and industry, particularly semiconductor or computer chip manufacturing, which requires ultrapure water.

Although ultrapure sounds like a marketing buzzword, it has a water free of all minerals, particles, bacteria, microbes, and dissolved gasses. The needs go far beyond water that is safe for human consumption.

“The minimum for ultrapure water in chip manufacturing is a 14-step process right now. The final product must contain less than one 10-nanometer particle per milliliter of water, which would be the density equivalent of having only a single person on the entire planet Earth,� Lopez said.

Semiconductor chips are manufactured in clean rooms, and ultrapure water is necessary to maintain temperature and humidity as well as to wash away residue produced during chip etching. Even the tiniest water impurities can damage the chips.

“Our work starts with NASA, but the beachhead market here on Earth is in ultrapure water production for semiconductors,â€� Straub said. “This is a huge potential market, and we have filed a provisional patents with Venture Partners at ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder.â€�

Straub is optimistic the grant will enable them to make significant progress in the coming months.

“This has been a four-year process, and at the beginning we didn’t know if it would work,â€� Straub said. “We started with theory and then went into the lab to test. The fabrication has gone through several iterations here in the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ labs. Now we are moving towards a commercial product, and the performance is impressive.â€�

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Drone technology and atmospheric science instruments developed by the University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder will be available to researchers nationwide through a new grant.

The National Science Foundation has awarded ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder a three-year, $1 million grant to establish a Community Instruments and Facilities program titled

“We have a track record for atmospheric research with the equipment we’ve created and the campaigns we’ve partnered in. Whenever atmospheric scientists need to collect data in environments they can’t get other ways, that’s where we come in,� said Brian Argrow, principal investigator for the grant.

Argrow, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is a nationally recognized expert in uncrewed aerial systems. He and ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder colleagues have spent decades developing fixed-wing and quad-copter-style drone systems to study weather and other atmospheric conditions.

Their work has spanned the globe, including in extreme conditions like the North Pole and several campaigns in the United States to analyze supercell thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes.

The new grant will provide the larger scientific community access to ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder’s instrumentation and know-how.

“We’re bringing aerospace to the atmospheric sciences community,� Argrow said. “We have the expertise, the drones, the deployment systems, and regulatory approval to fly in the national airspace system.�

Although the program does not officially begin until Nov. 1, Argrow said they have already been contacted by a university with a partnership proposal.

Inspecting a RAAVEN drone while on deployment.

“By increasing access to small uncrewed aerial systems, we’ll increase the amount of data available to the broader community to help solve some of the toughest problems in atmospheric science. Our technology can sample the physics and chemistry of the lower atmosphere and offer new perspectives on this environment,� Argrow said.

MUSAS joins a network of NSF-supported initiatives across the country that allow universities to share research equipment and expertise.

Through the program, partners will have access to ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder’s personnel as well as the RAAVEN and Super RAAVEN fixed-wing drones and the CopterSonde 3 quad-copter, along with deployment and tracking vehicles.

Argrow anticipates an array of research to come from the partnerships, including into boundary layer processes, coastal circulations, aerosol processes, turbulence and turbulent fluxes, surface-atmosphere exchange, high-latitude environments, and severe weather.

“Building on the initial investment from the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Grand Challenge Initiative, we have assembled infrastructure which is unique,â€� Argrow said. “ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Boulder has extensive experience operating and developing these systems, and this gives us the opportunity to expand our impact.â€�

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