SBIR Phase II: High Permeability Thin-Film Nanocomposite Membranes for Reverse Osmosis Desalination

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在进一步开发基于纳米材料的高渗透性节能膜，用于水的脱盐。基于膜的反渗透（RO）是世界上许多地方的主要海水淡化技术，尽管它只提供了饮用水需求的一小部分。这在很大程度上是由于该技术的能源密集性。人们普遍认为，膜渗透性的改善可以使海水RO的能量需求显著降低30- 50%。在第一阶段下开发的RO膜证明了在最先进的膜的渗透性方面的显著改善，同时保持了高的盐截留率。 第二阶段旨在扩大第一阶段开发的工艺，以生产具有行业标准形状因子的螺旋缠绕药筒。然后将对膜进行测试，以确定其在大型市政海水淡化厂中的未来性能。该项目的更广泛影响/商业影响是，该技术有望使RO海水淡化接近现有水生产方法的成本平价。 此外，在第一阶段中实现的上级膜性能证明了纳米材料在RO膜开发中的前景。将这一过程扩大到试验规模将有助于证明该技术的商业可行性。此外，该项目预计将提高对水和离子通过纳米级膜传输背后的科学的理解，这是当前学术界感兴趣的领域。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to further the development of nanomaterials-based, high permeability, energy-efficient membranes for desalination of water. Membrane-based reverse osmosis (RO) is the dominant desalination technology in many parts of the world, although it provides just a small fraction of potable water demand. This is in large part due to the energy intensiveness of the technology. It is widely acknowledged that improvements in membrane permeability can bring about significant reductions in the energy requirements for seawater RO of between 30-50%. The RO membranes developed under Phase I demonstrated significant improvements in permeability over state-of-the-art membranes, while maintaining a high salt rejection. Phase II aims to scale the process developed in Phase I to produce spiral wound cartridges of an industry standard form factor. The membranes then will be tested to determine their future performance in a large-scale municipal desalination plant.The broader impact/commercial impact of this project is that the technology is expected to bring RO desalination closer to cost-parity with existing methods of water production. Also, the superior membrane performance achieved in Phase I demonstrates the promise of nanomaterials in RO membrane development. Scaling this process up to the pilot scale will help demonstrate the commercial viability of the technology. In addition, this project is expected to enhance the understanding of the science behind water and ion transport through membranes on the nanometer-scale, an area of current academic interest.