Ultrapermeable Nanofiltration Membranes and Modules
Grant Data
Project Title
Ultrapermeable Nanofiltration Membranes and Modules
Principal Investigator
Professor Tang, Chuyang
(Principal Investigator (PI))
Co-Investigator(s)
Duration
7
Start Date
2022-06-16
Completion Date
2023-01-15
Amount
225337
Conference Title
Ultrapermeable Nanofiltration Membranes and Modules
Keywords
Membranes, Nanofiltration, Ultrapermeable
Discipline
Environmental
Panel
Engineering (E)
HKU Project Code
PiH/189/22
Grant Type
Research Talent Hub for ITF Projects (RTH-ITF)
Funding Year
2021
Status
Completed
Objectives
Commercially available thin film composite (TFC) nanofiltration membranes have water permeance on the order of 10 Lm-2h-1bar-1. This project aims to develop high-performance ultrapermeable nanofiltration membranes that are an order of magnitude more permeable compared to the commercial benchmarks. A gutter layer will be implemented to enhance the water transport behavior, whose properties and geometries will be carefully optimized with the aid of a novel analytical model. The resulting membranes are expected to offer extremely high permeance of 50 - 120 Lm-2h-1bar-1 while maintaining efficient contaminant rejection (e.g., > 90% for divalent ions, heavy metals and organic pollutants). The ultrapermeability of these novel nanofiltration membranes further enables the development of gravity-driven and vacuum-driven modules. These novel modules, which are unprecedented in the context of nanofiltration, offer dramatic reduction in pumping energy compared to conventional spiral wound modules. Benefiting from both ultrapermeability and novel module design, the integrated filtration systems have the potential to achieve one to two orders of magnitude reduction in energy consumption for nanofiltration. The current project has a great potential to result in major breakthroughs in nanofiltration-based water treatment, industrial wastewater treatment, water reuse, and pretreatment for seawater desalination.