Dr. Chad Jafvert Receives AEESP Outstanding Publication Award

Chad Jafvert (left, Purdue University) and Richard Valentine (right, University of Iowa) receive the Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Outstanding Publication Award during a ceremony.
Dr. Chad Jafvert, professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University, was recently awarded the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Outstanding Publication Award for his influential 1992 paper "Reaction Scheme for the Chlorination of Ammoniacal Water".1

The award is a commendation for a "landmark environmental engineering and science paper that has withstood the test of time and significantly influenced the practice of environmental engineering and science."

Professor Jafvert co-wrote the award-winning paper with his Ph.D. research advisor, Professor Richard L Valentine, of the University of Iowa.

The paper provides a fundamental understanding of drinking water disinfection chemistry. By using a chloramination disinfection process drinking water providers are able to reduce harmful disinfection byproducts by up to 90 percent, resulting in improved health outcomes for hundreds of millions of people globally. Approximately half of the population in the United States now benefits from the discoveries made by Jafvert and Valentine’s research. 

The described chlorination reaction schemes and kinetic model now appears in many Environmental Engineering textbooks.

In addition to providing quantitative tools that are used every day by practicing environmental engineers, this paper has served as a foundation for guiding innovative research on haloamine water chemistry for more than 20 years.

 

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1CT Jafvert and RL Valentine, 1992. “Reaction Scheme for the Chlorination of Ammoniacal Water", Environmental Science & Technology 26 (3), 577-586.