How Jacqueline Quinn Helped Make Earth a Cleaner Place to Live

“’I wonder if you could do this.’ It’s such a wonderful phrase and a great way to start the day,” said National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Jacqueline Quinn. “You have to see if your ‘I wonder’ statement propels you into thinking a different way or looking at a problem differently.”

Quinn’s own lifelong sense of wonder led her on a path toward exploring, inventing and improving our world. Read on to learn how she became a NASA engineer who co-invented an effective, environmentally safe cleanup technology.

A Passion for Science

Quinn was born on July 19, 1967, in Athens, Georgia. From an early age, she shared a love for science with her parents — both of whom were science educators. Her mother taught high school courses in biology, human anatomy and chemistry, and her father taught university courses specializing in early childhood science education.

Growing up, Quinn spent a lot of time in her father’s lab and in nature, and she developed an enduring interest in STEM.

“When I look at the opportunities I had and what I was eventually going to become, I really didn’t have any other option than to go into science, because I had such great role models,” she shared in an interview with the National Inventors Hall of Fame. “Being raised with a family that always wanted to be out experiencing the wonders of nature started it off.”

Quinn’s interest in STEM grew through her early years, leading her to enroll at the Georgia Institute of Technology to study civil engineering. In 1989, she earned her bachelor’s degree and began working for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Initially, she worked on the space shuttle program — an experience she described as “an awe-inspiring adventure.” Through this experience, she became more interested in environmental engineering and the ability of technology, mathematics and science to help improve, sustain and preserve nature.

While continuing to work for NASA, Quinn entered the University of Central Florida (UCF) to study environmental engineering, earning her master’s degree in 1994 and her doctorate in 1999.

A Vital Invention

In the late 1990s, Quinn and a team of researchers from UCF began exploring ways to more effectively clean concentrations of chlorinated solvent contaminants NASA had used in degreasing rocket engine parts. The solvents, classified as Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPLs), are sources of environmental contamination at thousands of government and private industry facilities. If left untreated, DNAPLs sink into the ground and can pollute fresh water sources.

Clean groundwater is among our most important natural resources, providing drinking water to over half of the U.S. population and helping to grow crops and produce thermoelectric power. When Quinn and her team began working on a solution, the standard approach to cleanup was a slow process that involved pumping the contaminated groundwater out of the earth, treating it and pumping the water back into the ground.

To meet the need for a more efficient and effective method, Quinn’s team developed an environmental cleanup technology called emulsified zero-valent iron, or EZVI.

“Our vision was to take the reactants and encapsulate them within an oil bubble,” Quinn said. “If you go by the old adage that ‘like likes like,’ what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to encapsulate the reactants in something that we know the contaminant is attracted to.”

EZVI works by placing nanoscale zero-valent iron particles into a surfactant-stabilized, biodegradable water-in-oil emulsion. As EZVI is injected into contaminated groundwater, the system acts like a sponge, pulling the contaminant into the emulsion where it then breaks down into harmless byproducts.

Eliminating the need to dig up contaminated water and soil, EZVI requires less treatment time, produces less toxic and more biodegradable byproducts, and is cost competitive. This system has decontaminated groundwater supplies on government sites; near plants that manufacture dyes, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, adhesives, aerosols and paint; and in dry cleaning, leather tanning, and metal cleaning and degreasing facilities.

"EZVI stands out as one of NASA's most widely licensed technologies to date,” Quinn said. “While NASA is often associated with the realms of space and airspace, one of our most licensed technologies operates quite literally beneath our feet."

In 2005, Quinn and her team were awarded the NASA Invention of the Year and the NASA Commercial Invention of the Year for EZVI.

Quinn is now the project manager for NASA’s PRIME-1 and VIPER MSOLO lunar missions. Through her unique story and her personal visits to Camp Invention^®, she hopes to inspire a sense of wonder and a love of STEM among the next generation of explorers and problem solvers.

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