Advanced membrane technologies for water treatment (original) (raw)
Sustainable Water through Innovation in Membranes & Materials (SWIMM)
2017
In 2012, the United Nations reported that water scarcity affects every continent. 1 Around 700 million people in 43 countries currently face water shortages or lack access to clean drinking water. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water stressed conditions. Water scarcity is mainly caused by overwhelming human consumption and contamination, from production of water-thirsty meats and vegetables, biofuel crop production, industrial uses, and rapid urbanization. 2 The scale of water scarcity makes it an interconnected global issue and efforts to minimize the gap between water supply and demand are critical. Although over 70% of the surface of the earth is covered with water, less than 1% is easily accessible fresh water. Moreover, the distribution of fresh water is not even over the globe. 3 Fresh water sources (e.g., rivers, lakes, groundwater) are increasingly being degraded below a usable quality for agriculture, industry, and drinking from anthropogenic inputs of inorganic (Anning and Flynn, 2012) and organic (Koplin et al 2002) contaminants. The generation and distribution of freshwater from non-potable fresh and saline sources has direct linkages to regional stability and global economic development. Materials have an important role to play in water production, water reuse, and wastewater treatment, particularly for water purification via filtration, membrane separations, and advanced techniques such as electrodialysis. For example, total global desalination capacity has grown rapidly over the last decade and was projected to be over 100 million cubic meters (m 3) per day in 2016. This capacity is twofold higher than global water production by desalination in 2008. 5-7 Properly designed and implemented membrane processes can be energy efficient and easily scalable, thus making them an ideal replacement for more energy intensive processes such as multi-effect distillation. Significant materials challenges still remain to the production of economical membranes with high flux, high selectivity, and good chemical and physical stability. In addition, the specific requirements vary based on the source water (i.e., sea water, brackish water, wastewater, hydraulic fracturing water, degraded fresh water) and the application (i.e., drinking water, industrial cooling water, agricultural and irrigation water, and water for food production.) This demands a multidisciplinary approach wherein application area experts work closely with researchers synthesizing new materials and fabricating novel membranes. 2. Relevance Virginia Tech is uniquely positioned for prominence in the development and application of materials for water purification and processing due to our internationally acknowledged strengths in polymer science and engineering (MII, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering), water quality and treatment (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Water Interface IGEP, Crop & Soil Environmental Sciences, Biological Systems Engineering), and sustainability (Sustainable Nanotechnology IGEP, Sustainable Biomaterials, Green Engineering). For this effort we bring together the broad expertise of a diverse group of researchers, many of whom are well-known on the national and international stages. The research team is composed of faculty spread across a number of departments and colleges, and many are already involved in ongoing research collaborations and in current interdisciplinary initiatives. The team includes faculty from the colleges of Engineering, Science, Natural Resources & the Environment, and Agriculture & Life Sciences, and departments including those identified above as well as Physics, Materials Science & Engineering,, Biomedical Engineering & Mechanics, Human Nutrition, Foods, & Exercise, and Agricultural & Applied Economics. The goal of this program is to approach materials research for water applications for the broad range of water users and consumers. The breadth of the research team provides the capacity to link together research from diverse disciplines and over multiple scales from experimental and computational to molecular design of new materials through device fabrication, scale-up and manufacturing, process and system level modeling, and economic, environmental, and health impact and life-cycle analysis. Relevance to GSS, the Materials SGA, and other Destination Areas: SWIMM is directly aligned with the "abundance and quality of fresh water" critical problem area identified in the GSS destination area. In addition, SWIMM is aligned with the "Environment" research pillar in the nascent Materials SGA, and has been selected as one of 5 core research thrusts for further development. SWIMM will contribute to both the research and teaching goals of the GSS destination area. The group will leverage existing expertise, facilities, and collaborations to develop a broad, interdisciplinary research initiative in the development of new materials, devices, and systems in the critical area of sustainable water production and processing. The proposed research area is complementary to three current Destination Areas: Intelligent Infrastructure for Human Centered Communities (IIHCC), Global System Science (GSS), Data Analytics & Decision Sciences. We envision potential interactions with IIHCC through their efforts in Smart Design and Construction, as water purification, delivery, and wastewater treatment are key elements in this area. The quantification of impacts of water production, quality, and distribution requires the analysis of large data sets, so there is clear potential for interactions with DADS. Opportunities for Extramural Funding: Interest in water purification cuts across multiple funding sources, including government agencies and industrial sponsors. NSF has recently instituted a program for Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) and this is a natural fit for the SWIMM effort. NSF has also funded Engineering Research Centers in the water area, such as the ERC on Nanofiltration at Rice University. Our approach is distinct in that we are focused on membranebased technologies for reverse osmosis, forward osmosis, and electrodialysis applications. The USDA has recently announced an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) RFP in the "Water for Food Production Systems Challenge Area", which is a natural fit for the program. In addition, there are several programs at the DOE and DOE that can be targeted. Current interdisciplinary funding in these areas at Virginia Tech include the REU program in research at the Food-Energy-Water Nexus run by the Macromolecules Innovation Institute, and the NSF REU and RET programs in Water Science. With some investment, Virginia Tech will be well positioned to apply for a Center level grant (ERC or MRSEC) in the area of membrane-based water purification within the next 3-5 years. 3. Curriculum Opportunities The SWIMM focus lends itself well to the development of interdisciplinary curricular programs in sustainable water productionefforts that tie in directly to ongoing initiatives such as Pathways to Knowledge, and the VT-shaped student concept of undergraduate education. Such an effort could include the development of a Pathways minor that ties together the social, economic, scientific, and policy issues associated with the production of potable water and the treatment of wastewater. In addition, faculty in SWIMM would take a lead role in the development of an interdisciplinary curriculum at both the undergraduate level aimed at providing students with the tools and knowledge necessary to tackle both the technical and non-technical issues associated with water production and treatment.
Exploring the current state of play for cost-effective water treatment by membranes
npj Clean Water, 2018
This article presents a perspective on the current development and application of membranes for the treatment of water. We examine how membranes contribute to the global challenge of sustainable supply of clean water. The main theme is on desalination and how innovative science and emerging technology is being applied. Thus, we appraise how techniques such as advanced membrane materials, biomimetic membranes, hybrid systems, forward osmosis, and membrane distillation are being used to improve production to meet the increasing global demand for water.
Sustainability, 2021
Discharged water from the oil and gas fields is a common type of wastewater called produced water (PW). It consists of different combinations of salinities, oils, and mineral deposits. Growing industrial demand, accelerated urbanization, and rapid population growth are putting enormous strain on the world’s water supply. Based on sustainable freshwater supplies, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia confront the ultimate water shortages threat. Proper implementation of innovative membrane technologies in wastewater treatment is considered a solution towards tackling water insecurity and sustainability. Different types of innovative membrane technologies used for produced water treatment were considered in this work. A framework of innovative membrane technology was studied for industrial wastewater with direct contribution to the environmental and economical sustainability factors, taking into consideration grand challenges and limitations in energy costs and environmental c...
Euromembrane 2000 highlights membrane-based water treatment technologies
Membrane Technology, 2001
The first instalment of our Euromembrane 2000 round-up, which was published i At Euromembrane 2000, Marianne Nystrom in the January 2001 issue of Membrane Technology, looked at developments in i of the Department of Chemical Technology, liquid membranes and ~stillation. The conference aIso looked in detail at water. Lappeenranta University of Technology in treatment, and this article, the second in a series of three summaries covering the j Finland, highlighted some of the potential uses of NE and the advantages which this technology event that was held in Israel during September last year, considers the role which i oEers_ These are different types of membranes are now playing in this area. . Compared with RO, the concentration of a product which cannot pass through a NF membrane costs less because of the Lower pressures which are needed. Examples of this include applications in the pulp and paper industry. NF can be used as a pretreatment method in the production of drinking water. Because part of the salt is retained and parr is permeated, the pressures can be kept lower, and the fluxes higher, than is possible with RO. It also preferentially retains multivalent ions (hardness). If needed, the final step can then use RO, which eliminates the remaining monovalent salts.
Water Treatment: Are Membranes the Panacea?
Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 2020
Alongside the rising global water demand, continued stress on current water supplies has sparked interest in using nontraditional source waters for energy, agriculture, industry, and domestic needs. Membrane technologies have emerged as one of the most promising approaches to achieve water security, but implementation of membrane processes for increasingly complex waters remains a challenge. The technical feasibility of membrane processes replacing conventional treatment of alternative water supplies (e.g., wastewater, seawater, and produced water) is considered in the context of typical and emerging water quality goals. This review considers the effectiveness of current technologies (both conventional and membrane based), as well as the potential for recent advancements in membrane research to achieve these water quality goals. We envision the future of water treatment to integrate advanced membranes (e.g., mixed-matrix membranes, block copolymers) into smart treatment trains that achieve several goals, including fitfor-purpose water generation, resource recovery, and energy conservation.
Membranes and the water cycle: challenges and opportunities
Applied Water Science, 2011
Membrane technology for the water cycle has been around for about 50 years and is taking an increasingly important role in the provision of safe water supply and treatment and reuse of wastewater. It is timely to examine the challenges and the future of the technology. The challenges are both technical and socio-political and they provide the drivers for new developments. This paper summarizes the status of membranes in the water industry and discusses the major challenges and possible responses that will determine the possible futures.
Membrane Bioreactors (MBR) for Municipal Wastewater Treatment - An Australian Perspective
2000
Based on global research and local knowledge, this paper aims to discuss MBR design considerations from an Australian perspective. It includes discussion on how applicable (or otherwise) this technology may be for Australian conditions and it lists some of the local opportunities and local barriers that this technology may experience. Some of the existing Australian MBR examples are listed and