Whitney Fowler

As many resources are being unsustainably depleted as the global population exponentially rises, society is turning toward wastewater as a new source for reclaiming valuable nutrients. One strategic resource to recover is phosphate. Though it is profuse in wastewater and agricultural runoffs, it is also a nonrenewable resource that is rapidly being depleted yet is vital for the food industry as a fertilizer. Thus, Whitney’s research aims to design, synthesize, and characterize a new class of materials that bind and retain phosphate and can subsequently release and recover it in a controllable manner. The platform for this material design is biologically inspired peptide amphiphiles (PAs), which can strategically incorporate the natural binding characteristics of proteins. Peptide binding sequences will be synthesized into the headgroup of PA molecules, which will then be displayed to the environment as the PAs spontaneously self-assemble into micelles and designable hydrogels. This work will not only explore fundamental knowledge of binding to functional groups on supramolecular structures, but also pave the way for developing an innovative class of capture-and-release materials that can target and reclaim valuable resources from water.