Desalination membranes
The increasing global concern over the limited supply of fresh water from conventional sources has led to great efforts towards the utilisation of alternative water sources.
Membrane desalination has been considered as one of the most promising techniques for saline water recovery. Two membrane methods of water desalination, reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodialysis (ED), compete for a dominating position in the water recovery systems. The ED method shows some advantages over RO in terms of the level of water pretreatment, membrane replacement frequency and energy cost, whereas one of the most challenging problems that hinder the development of ED technique are membrane materials.
To date it is generally only polymeric membranes with functional groups that have been used in the ED apparatus. However, the apparent disadvantages associated with polymer membranes, such as poor thermal and chemical stability, high sensitivity, and especially the fouling tendency toward organic contaminants, has resulted in limited applications for ED.
This project is a cluster project of the CSIRO Water Flagship program led by Prof Max Lu, Dr Lianzhou Wang and A/Prof Joe da Costa, aiming to prepare novel nanocomposite materials for ion-exchange membrane in electrodialysis (ED).
The key concept of the research is the incorporation of oxide nanoparticles into ionic conducting polymers to achieve homogeneously mixed nanocomposites with controllable porosity and tunable surface property. The outcomes will lead to possible breakthrough technologies in cost-effective and highly efficient water recovery systems.
