Research overview
David's research focuses on the use of thermofluids and nanoengineering for challenges for water treatment and separations processes, especially at the intersection of water, energy, food, and health. This work includes improved process design for water treatment, new membrane materials and coatings, new membrane physics, nanomaterials for disinfection, water vapor removal for harvesting or HVAC, heat and mass transport for separations, and energy efficiency thermodynamics for water treatment. Overview video.
Key Links: Google Scholar, publications, twitter handle: @WarsingerLab, youtube channel, ORCID: 0000-0003-3446-1473
Collaboration
David is an avid collaborator and eagerly works with faculty as well as postdoc's and graduate students. Ongoing collaborative opportunities include numerous experimental and modeling journal papers related to membrane nanomaterials, review papers on water treatment membranes, and entrepreneurial work. For government grant teams requiring cost share (e.g. DOE, BoR), Purdue is very good about providing cost share compared to peer institutes- our past grant cost share have even exceeded 50%.
Collaborative Capabilities:
The Warsinger Lab has large and small apparatuses for testing membrane technologies, including numerous configurations of membrane distillation and reverse osmosis. The lab has extensive testing for membrane properties such as liquid entry pressure, permeate flux, fouling, membrane porosity (porometer), zeta potential, etc. The lab has a collimated beam for photocatalysis studies, and a system for measuring thermal conductivity of liquids. The lab extensive models for: membrane distillation, multieffect distillation, multistage flash, nanofiltration, batch reverse osmosis, and HVAC membrane processes. The group also has multiphysics reactive models for nanoswimmers, self-pumping membranes, catalysis, and membrane fouling. We also have useful subscriptions that can be shared (e.g. COMSOL with microfluidic and electro-chemistry modules).
Research Talks and other videos
Improving Desalination Performance with Batch Reverse Osmosis
Can we save lives with thermodynamics? Nanoengineering and Thermofluids for the Water-Food-Energy Nexus (Purdue, overview of my research)
Thermodynamic design and fouling of membrane distillation desalination (PhD Defense)
Artificially intelligent battle-bot competition (Cornell, double elimination, winner)
Press Releases
Our paper on the efficiency limits of seawater reverse osmosis has received press coverage from WDR, Nature Chemical Engineering, and Purdue News, October 2028
Warsinger recieved UCOWR’s Early Career Award for Extension/Outreach at their conference in St. Luis, August 2024
Warsinger recieved Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator in Heat Transfer at the ASME conference in Anaheim, July 2024
The DOE announces winners of the 2024 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition: Our team won 2nd overall, best poster, best outreach, May 2024
At AWWA/AMTA MTC, Warsinger recieved the Austin F. McCormack Jr. Award for best young membrane professional, Mar. 2024
Warsinger was one of the Prof’s receiving “Funds intended to recognize, reward and retain top talent” Feb 2024
The new ReNEW $160M NSF Engine will include Purdue Prof’s Warsinger, Z. Zhou, and L. Lee (lead)
Prof Warsinger and others testified before the Indiana State Legislature about SB202, Feb 2024
Our paper with Prof. Linda Lee was featured on local news broadcast and online (Fox59), July 2023
David Warsinger won the 2022/2023 Membranes Young Investigator Award, July 2023
Our Marine Energy Collegiate Competition team won 3rd place, and will be competing next year, May 2023
We won a grant from the Desalination Hub NAWI for a $1.6M project on piloting batch RO, Feb, 2023
We posted code on GitHub so anyone can make their own Lego figure or graphic! Dec, 2022
We created a Lego map showing energy needed from our paper on atmospheric water harvesting, Dec. 2022
We won 1st prize at the Innovation forum at the IDA World congress, at Sydney Australia, October 2022
We won a $2.4M grant from the DOE AMO for membrane drying for industrial processes, June, 2022
A team in my section won the Malott competition top prize for a system to put graphene on surfaces, May 2022
Team member Yuhang (Joy) Fang won 2nd place best poster at North American Membrane Society’s annual conference. Tempe, Arizona, May 2022.
Our Active Membrane Energy Exchanger invention was featured in ASME’s magazine and website, May 2022
Team member Lahiri Chitturi won 1st place (Interdisciplinary) at the Purdue Undergrad Research Conference for her work on Solar Thermal Batch RO. April 2022.
Prof Warsinger was interviewed for a news article on desalination. March 2022.
We are competing in MECC again, with the team also an entrant to EPA’s P3 competition. November 2021
The most efficient outdoor air HVAC may be achieved by combining vapor-selective membranes and heat exchangers. Jume 2021
Our team for NREL’s Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC) won first place (press 1, 2, 3), with wave-power hybridized with batch RO (see report). May 2021.
Several news articles (1,2,3,4,5) were released about our work on high efficiency batch RO and batch Counterflow RO. May 2021.
A Batch of RO Options highlights two of our very recent papers on batch RO in the Water Desalination Report. March 2021.
Our project for Desalination of Water in Arid and Semi-arid areas in Kenya is studying Batch RO and safe brine use of well water in Africa, Jan 2021.
I was announced as a winner of the NAMS (North American Membrane Society) Young Membrane Scientist Award with a bio in their Membrane Quarterly
Desalination innovations needed for the next 50 years, in the 50th Anniversary edition of the National Academy of Engineering’s The Bridge
Our teams won two pitch competitions for our work on COVID-19 UV Disinfection, with Startup Promethium ($250k) and the CHPB ($65k), November 2020
Our team is among 19 Semifinalists winning $50k for the DOE Solar Desalination Competition. November 2020
Shah Family Global Innovation Lab Announces Seed Grant Winners for solutions to the bottleneck challenges of social nonprofits. July 2020
David Warsinger named one of 35 Innovators under 35, in the Humanitarian category, MIT Technology Review, June 2020
Bold Plan ? Replace the Border Wall with an Energy Border Corridor in Scientific American,27 March 2018
Batch RO is a winner for the Bureau of Reclamation's More Water, Less Concentrate Innocentive prize, 2017
Brine Recovery, the circular economy project which unites CADAGUA with MIT, Ferrovial Newsroom, 08/14/2017
Batch desalination bests standard RO in MIT News, 18 November 2016.
Low Carbon Desalination Workshop at MIT, 17-18 October 2016, in MIT News.
David M. Warsinger receives the UCOWR Outstanding Dissertation Award in Science and Engineering, from the Universities Council on Water Resources, March 2016.
Example research projects
We are adapting water desalination technologies to work with remote water-energy Microgrids with wind, wave, and solar power, designing them for the intermittent limitations of renewable power. Innovations include multiple means of energy storage, and novel hydraulic integration of reverse osmosis with wind or wave power. We also examine blue energy pressure retarded osmosis, and salinity gradient energy storage.