For the second time in his distinguished career, Arup K. SenGupta, P.C. Rossin Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering, has received a grant through the Fulbright Scholar Program to conduct research in India.
Beginning in January, SenGupta will spend the Spring 2020 semester collaborating with faculty members at the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati (IIT-G) associated with its Center of the Environment. His work will focus primarily on exploring the implementation of technology developed at Lehigh to transform wastewater into usable water with minimum energy consumption.
SenGupta and his research team invented Hybrid Ion Exchange Nanotechnology (HIX-Nano), a filtration nanotechnology resin that removes arsenic and fluoride from water. The technology is the basis of Drinkwell, a tech-driven social enterprise that uses the filtration system and a network of water kiosks to bring access to clean water to communities in countries including Bangladesh and India. SenGupta launched the startup in 2012 in partnership with two Fulbright alumni, Minhaj Chowdhury and Mike German ’17 PhD. According to the Global Innovation Fund, “the innovation is solving a major global crisis affecting millions of people living on less than $5 a day” in South Asia.