Seawater Desalination RO Membranes
Reverse osmosis (RO) technology has attracted great academic and industrial interest due to the increasing demand for clean water in various aspects of our life and society. However, membrane fouling, or the accumulation of foulants on the RO membrane, inevitably leads to a decrease in membrane permeability, higher energy consumption and cost. The conventional method of mitigating fouling is to add chemicals such as chloramine to the feed solution, which is costly, time- and energy-inefficient, and environmentally undesirable.
In this project, the research team is developing new chemical-free fouling mitigation strategies with low cost and a reduced energy consumption to achieve high-efficiency RO membrane antifouling. The research objectives include: i) studying the fouling process during RO membrane operation and characterizing the adhesion between fouling film and RO membrane; ii) understanding new foulant-detaching mechanisms based on mechanical methods.
The significance and impact of the proposed project is two-fold: i) it will provide fundamental understanding of foulant detaching mechanisms; and ii) based on this understanding, it will result in the development of a high-efficiency, chemical-free antifouling strategy for RO systems. Whereas existing studies on membrane fouling and antifouling have not incorporated a deep understanding of solid mechanics; the proposed work is creating a new collaboration between experts in soft material mechanics (Zhao lab) and experts in RO membrane fouling (Lienhard lab) to develop targeted, efficient, chemical-free membrane fouling mitigation protocols.