(517a) Adsorptive Membranes Incorporating Ionic Liquids (ILs), Deep Eutectic Salts (DESs) or Graphene Oxide (GO) for Metal Salts Extraction from Aqueous Feed

Water scarcity especially in arid regions is a major concern as a result of the rapid growth in population, industrialization, and climate change. A conventional and dependable solution to potable water supply is seawater desalination. Membrane-based seawater desalination, although successful in delivery, suffers from being energy intensive (high pressures) and with problems in operation due to membrane fouling (high operational cost). Improving the performance of these membranes by increasing their yield and selectivity and reducing the energy consumption and footprint is the solution. Adsorptive membranes, membranes with materials embedded in their matrix, combine both adsorption and membrane technologies to remove pollutants and assist in overcoming the standalone-membranes’ disadvantages. These composite membranes have successfully achieved higher permeability, selectivity, and lower pressure requirement without compensation in pollutant rejection. This has prompted researchers to study different types of adsorbents to be embedded in membranes such as nano-sized adsorbents and bio-adsorbents for different applications and seems to be very promising for the water desalination case.

In an ongoing effort of our research group to address the issue of producing quality water from aqueous feed, we are going to discuss our findings on how adsorptive membranes with incorporated ionic liquids (ILs), deep eutectic solvents (DESs) and graphene oxide (GO) by its own or functionalized (f-GO) can assist in overcoming the existing problems in metal salt removal from aqueous feed. Finally, the existing and predicted challenges that can arise will be presented along with future outlooks and recommendations.

Acknowledgements

The financial support by the ASPIRE Award for Research Excellence (AARE-2021) Program of the U.A.E. through grant no. AARE20-246 to Ioannis Zuburtikudis (PI) and Hadil Abu Khalifeh (Co-PI) is greatly acknowledged.