In January, SC EPSCoR/IDeA (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research/Institutional Development Awards) announced the recipients of their Stimulus Research Program (SRP). The Program was developed to strengthen South Carolina’s research capacity and research competitiveness. Each proposal was submitted by a collaborative team consisting of at least two of the three comprehensive research universities and two predominately undergraduate institutions.
SC EPSCoR received 29 proposals last fall. The review process of these proposals was handled by a national firm who judged them based on many external reviews. Four proposals were ultimately chosen based on these external reviews.
Clemson’s Scott Husson leads one of the four selected projects, titled “Anaerobic membrane bioreactors as a next-generation technology to address the food-energy water nexus.” Husson is joined on the project by Nicole Berge (USC), Jessica Ferrer (Benedict College), Brannon Andersen (Furman University), Sudeep Popat (Clemson), Gary Amy (Clemson), and David Ladner (Clemson).
The vision of the proposal and the project altogether is to establish anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) as a next‐generation municipal wastewater treatment platform for water reuse as well as energy harvesting and nutrient recovery. This acts to address key challenges that our society faces at the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus. The project objectives align very closely with two industry focus areas highlighted in the South Carolina Vision 2025: (i) energy and (ii) environment and sustainability.