(152d) Advanced Reverse Osmosis Membranes for Water Treatment

Reverse osmosis (RO) membranes have been used widely for water treatment. Recent advances in terms of permselectivity, permeability, productivity, and membrane manufacturing technology will be discussed. Our research in this field includes the following two major areas:

(1) Low energy membranes. The focus is mainly on the formulation of low pressure RO membrane. Our approaches are to use various additives to modify the chemistry of the thin-film formation, modification of the membrane surface and chemical treatment of the membrane after formation.

(2) Anti-fouling membranes. Fouling of the membrane in water treatment has been a serious problem. To overcome this problem, a variety of modifications of membrane surface and formulation are used. The main approaches are to increase the surface hydrophilicity and to reduce surface roughness. Our results are compared with the current available membranes in the market.

In addition, we are also studying the effect on the structure of the supporting layer on the overall permselectivity and permeability, the effect of solvent removal during quenching on membrane structure, and the effect of membrane process parameters on membrane performance characteristics. Some of the experimental results will be discussed.