Integrating decentralized wastewater treatment into municipal infrastructure for increased resilience during intense precipitation events

High-intensity storm events, which are occurring with more frequency and intensity, can overburden aging municipal infrastructure, forcing utility leaders in both urban and rural service areas to decide between overflowing untreated sewage into waterways (sewer overflows) or backing up basements with contaminated water. In the U.S., 850 billion gallons of untreated sewage are discharged into lakes, rivers, and oceans every year. Climate change, population growth, and aging infrastructure are only making matters worse, particularly within coastal regions. Utility decision-makers and the communities they serve require new solutions to address this growing concern. Rapid Radicals’ patent-pending catalytically enhanced advanced oxidation process can treat wastewater to the same quality or greater than conventional treatment 20 times faster in 95% less space. This proposal focuses on innovating two key technical milestones required for municipal deployment of the core technology: (1) determining the feasibility of applying a scalable catalyst to the process to decrease treatment time and improve energy efficiency and (2) integrating machine learning models into the automated system for more energy-efficient and reliable decentralized wastewater treatment. Advancing these technical milestones will increase the Rapid Radicals system’s ability to help utility decision-makers be more agile and responsive in building climate resilience.