SBIR Phase I: Carbon Nanotube Enhanced Membrane Distillation for Sea and Brackish Water Desalination, and the Treatment of Saline Waste Water

SBIR第一期：碳纳米管增强膜蒸馏用于海水和苦咸水淡化以及含盐废水的处理

• 批准号: 1647820
• 负责人: Cheng Li
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: NanoSepex Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-15 至 2019-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1647820&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Carbon; Nanotube; Enhanced

The broader impact/commercial potential of this small business Innovative Research Phase 1 project is the possibility of inexpensive clean water generation from sea and brackish water. With rapidly increasing world population, portable water will be one of the most important technological challenges of this century. There is no unique ?one size fits all? approach to desalination. Many factors such as salt concentration, the presence of specific ions, energy cost, pretreatment requirements and capital investments are important considerations in selecting the desalination technology to be implemented. The carbon nanotube enhanced membrane distillation proposed here is a relatively low temperature process where industrial waste heat and solar heating can be used for desalination. Small water heaters such as the natural gas heaters used in homes can be used to generate high quality drinking water along with what is needed for domestic consumption. Another major application of this technology is in oil and gas drilling. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a water-intensive process. A typical frack well uses several million gallons of water over its lifetime and generates a highly saline ?produced water?. With its ability to handle high salt concentrations, the proposed approach is a viable alternative for treating this waste. The technical objectives in this project are to utilize carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to create breakthrough membrane properties for desalination via membrane distillation (MD). In MD, a hydrophobic porous membrane separates a hot salt water feed and a cold permeate stream. As the heated brine passes on the membrane and is partially transformed to water vapor. The hydrophobicity of the membrane prevents the aqueous solution from entering the pores. However, freed from hydrogen bonding the water vapor passes through and is condensed on the permeate side of the membrane. The novel membranes referred to as carbon nanotube immobilized membranes (CNIM) will be developed by immobilizing CNTs into membrane pores where they will serve as molecular transporters and sorbents, thus providing additional pathways for water vapor transport. The other major advantage of CNIM is that it is less prone to fouling than conventional membranes. Key innovations of the proposal include the functionalization of CNTs for maximization of water vapor transport while minimizing fouling. Additional objectives include the study of fouling behavior of some commercially important water samples such as sea water, power plant effluents and produced water. Finally, a process optimization tool will be developed to optimize CNIM-MD design.

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是从海水和微咸水中生产廉价的清洁水的可能性。 随着世界人口的迅速增长，便携式水将成为本世纪最重要的技术挑战之一。没有独特的“一刀切”吗？海水淡化的方法。许多因素，如盐浓度、特定离子的存在、能源成本、预处理要求和资本投资，都是选择要实施的海水淡化技术时的重要考虑因素。这里提出的碳纳米管增强膜蒸馏是一种相对低温的过程，可以利用工业废热和太阳能加热进行海水淡化。家庭使用的天然气热水器等小型热水器可用于生产高质量的饮用水以及家庭消费所需的水。该技术的另一个主要应用是石油和天然气钻探。水力压裂或水力压裂是一个耗水量很大的过程。典型的压裂井在其使用寿命期间使用数百万加仑的水并产生高盐度的“采出水”。 由于能够处理高盐浓度，所提出的方法是处理这种废物的可行替代方案。 该项目的技术目标是利用碳纳米管（CNT）通过膜蒸馏（MD）实现海水淡化的突破性膜特性。在 MD 中，疏水性多孔膜将热盐水进料和冷渗透流分开。 当加热的盐水通过膜时，部分转化为水蒸气。膜的疏水性可防止水溶液进入孔内。然而，由于没有氢键，水蒸气穿过膜并在膜的渗透侧冷凝。这种被称为碳纳米管固定膜（CNIM）的新型膜将通过将碳纳米管固定在膜孔中而开发，它们将充当分子转运体和吸附剂，从而为水蒸气运输提供额外的途径。 CNIM 的另一个主要优点是它比传统膜更不易结垢。该提案的主要创新包括碳纳米管的功能化，以最大限度地提高水蒸气传输，同时最大限度地减少污垢。 其他目标包括研究一些商业上重要的水样的污垢行为，例如海水、发电厂废水和采出水。最后，将开发流程优化工具来优化 CNIM-MD 设计。