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The Princeton WET (Water & Energy Technologies) Lab is affiliated with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University.

The WET Lab is led by Prof. Z. Jason Ren, and lab members work on Water-Energy-Climate Nexus, especially in areas of electrification, decarbonization, and digitalization of the environmental and chemical sectors.  The group uses electrochemistry, microbiology, and data science tools to gain insights into the fundamental determining factors, and they develop models and technologies for resource recovery and carbon capture and utilization during environmental processes.

WATER & WASTEWATER SECTOR ELECTRIFICATION AND DIGITALIZATION

  • Energy and carbon efficient wastewater treatment and reuse
  • Electrified processes for waste management and resource recovery
  • Greenhouse gas emission monitoring, analysis and quantification
  • Machine learning tools for water and wastewater resource recovery
  • Microbial and electrochemical carbon capture, utilization, and valorization
  • Environmental biotechnology
  • Sustainable and resilient water infrastructure

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS FOR MINERAL RECOVERY AND WATER DESALINATION

  • Evaporative extraction of lithium and other chemicals from brine waters
  • Novel wood materials and membranes for water-energy applications
  • Capacitive deionization and membranes
  • Oil and gas flow back water and produced water management
  • Seawater and groundwater desalination

BIOENERGY, BIOFUELS, AND BIOPRODUCTS GENERATION FROM BIOMASS AND WASTEWATER

    • Microbial electrochemical technology platform (MET) (bioelectrochemical system, microbial electrochemical system, MXCs, microbial fuel cell, microbial electrolysis cell, microbial desalination cell, microbial electrosynthesis)
    • Fermentation, Electro-fermentation, anaerobic digestion, and other bioenergy systems for hydrogen, biogas, drop-in fuels, and value-added chemicals production
    • Anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR), electrochemical membrane bioreactor (EMBR)