| 초록 |
Worldwide population increases and industrial development will drastically increase demand for freshwater in the coming years. Currently, 2.3 billion people live in water-stressed regions; this number is expected to increase to 3.5 billion by 2025. Potentially water sources, such as seawater and produced water from oil and natural gas processing, and often located near highly arid and densely populated regions. If such water could be economically purified, it would provide immediately relief in water-scare areas. Water also strongly affects energy and food production, industrial output, and the quality of our environment, influencing the economies of both developing and industrialized nations. Membrane processes, such as microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO), are critically important technologies for water purification. However, membrane degradation (e.g., low chlorine tolerance of commercial polyamide membranes) and fouling (e.g., emulsified oil droplets, activated sludge in membrane bioreactors, proteins and other solutes) are major challenges facing wide-spread implementation of membrane separation systems. This talk will address new membrane materials with chemical tolerance for desalination and a facile membrane modification strategy to reduce fouling in all common membranes used in water purification applications. To realize these challenging goals, many open research questions need to be addressed. This research will enable improved disinfection, re-use and desalination methods to work in concert to improve health, safe-guard the environment, and reduce water scarcity, not just in the industrialized world, but in the developing world, where less chemical- and energy-intensive technologies are greatly needed. |
