CLEVELAND, Ohio -- NASA has been sharing its space age technology on earth for decades, giving birth to inventions we now take for granted such as infrared ear thermometers, robotic artificial limbs and anti-icing systems for commercial aircraft.
But one of the space agency's latest discoveries has the potential to provide benefits to mankind that far surpass anything NASA has patented in the the past, purifying polluted water that kills millions of people every year in underdeveloped countries.
And graduate students at Case Western Reserve University could play a key role in seeing that the hometown NASA innovation is properly commercialized and reaches its maximum worldwide potential.
Dr. Isaiah Blankson
About four years ago, Dr. Isaiah Blankson and his team of scientists at the NASA Glenn Research Center began studying the use of electrically charged plasma - an ionized gas -- to purify water.
The technology itself was not new, Blankson said. But his regime was revolutionary: injecting plasma into water and bombarding it with up to 100,000 volts of electricity pulsed in short bursts of 2-5 nanoseconds, effectively killing every cell of bacteria in the water without raising the temperature more than a single degree.
The NASA water-purification treatment also removes other harmful elements such as heavy metals that elude conventional water-purification systems employing filters, chemical injections or ultraviolet radiation treatments, Blankson said.
"Here at NASA, we were looking for someone to take this proven method and turn it into a product that produces so many thousands of gallons of pure water a day," Blankson said. "The technology is ripe for implementation and marketing."
Enter Case Western Reserve University and Fusion, a post-graduate program that brings together students from engineering, law and business, and assigns them to work on a different project every year. This year, they have been teamed with four separate water purification product designs developed by leading research labs, including NASA Glenn's invention.
Each team's production concept will be developed and evaluated for potential product applications, intellectual property development and commercial viability.
"Water comprises a half a trillion dollar global market, and Dr. Blankson's technology is very amenable to purification technology challenges in the class," said Theodore Theofrastous, the managing director of Fusion and a professor at Case's School of Law.
Theofrastous said the Fusion students will seek applications for a portable plasma water-purification unit which can be driven by solar power or gas-powered generators. The teams will attempt to identify the different types of intellectual properties needed to commercialize the product, to determine its best potential market, and to estimate the resources required to reach the next developmental milestone.
Blankson said he welcomed the assistance of the Fusion teams.
"Even though we have the science and engineering capabilities for purifying water, we needed to address the social, the economic and especially the political challenges caused by water urgencies in the 21st century," Blankson said.
The initial and most obvious application for the plasma unit would be for space travel, Blankson said. The space station must be resupplied three times a year, and the majority of the payload on each supply ship is water. If ever a manned flight is sent to Mars, recycled water would be the only practical solution, he said.
Other logical uses for his water purification system, Blankson said, would be to remove toxic microcystin bacteria from Lake Erie during the height of the summer algal blooms.
"Conventional water treatment approaches, and even boiling, does not kill all of the microcystin bacteria," Blankson said. "Two weeks ago, we tested our process on microcystin and were able to remove every bit of it."
Blankson also foresees great potential for his process in Third World countries, where contaminated drinking water kills nearly 3.5 million people a year, and infects hundreds of thousands of others with water-borne diseases such as cholera, hepatitis and other gastrointestinal and neurological illnesses.
Blankson also has conducted successful tests on milk for pasteurization, and he foresees desalination of seawater as another potential use.
"Some day soon, water is going to become more important than oil," Blankson said. "Despite the fact that most of the Earth's surface is covered with water, only 3 percent of it is potable, and the Great Lakes are a primary resource for this."
There lies the conundrum for the Fusion students, and for which Blankson's plasma water purification system may provide the Holy Grail, said Theofrastous.
"People are worried," he said. "They want to make sure their drinking water is clean, which creates opportunities for technologies such as these. Our challenge is to find which of the processes would be the most feasible, investable and sustainable long-term."
Plain Dealer researcher Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.