SBIR Phase II: Chemically Resistant Membranes for Water Purification

这个SBIR二期项目将开发突破性的聚合物膜，通过反渗透来净化水。它将解决由人口增长和城市化推动的公认的全球清洁饮用水需求，这些需求影响到生活在缺水土地上的数十亿人。不同地理位置的水和不同类型的水(如海水、工业废水、自来水回用)中的杂质不同，能够选择性地去除不同杂质组合的分离膜将对应对这一世界性挑战至关重要。在这个价值约50亿美元的市场中，该技术提供了一种方法，可以大大消除成本高昂的清洁操作，并将工厂停机时间降至最低。通过减少所需的前处理和提高耐污染性能，可以延长膜的使用周期并提高膜的水通量，从而实现工业和操作效率的提高。这个SBIR二期项目将生产薄膜复合反渗透(RO)膜，膜由厚度约100 nm的精确磺化聚砜聚合物在多孔支撑物上组成。这些新型膜将为净水膜带来一场长期追逐的革命，因为它们具有高抗氯性和防止生物污染的能力。他们还将第一次有效地从混合盐成分中去除污染海水和咸水的单价盐。磺化聚砜由于其固有的耐化学性，以前曾被认为是反渗透膜，但由于在高离子强度下的低盐截留率以及在混合盐类给水中的盐截留率较低而失败。城市用水要求高，其工艺用水往往被有毒产品(含硼和砷的部分、碳氢化合物、全氟表面活性剂、生物膜)污染，在技术上和经济上都很难回用。该项目通过精确磺化聚合物来推进材料合成和材料加工。第二阶段将利用这些进展来优化膜涂层工艺，将其扩大到中试数量，并测量对自来水再利用、工业水净化以及微咸水表面、地下水和高盐度海水的净化中发现的一系列杂质的阻力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase II project will develop breakthrough polymeric membranes to purify water by reverse osmosis. It will address the recognized global need for clean drinking water driven by increasing population and urbanization that affect billions of people living in water-stressed lands. The impurities in water from different geographical locations and different types of water (e.g., seawater, industrial wastewater, tap water reuse) differ, and separation membranes that can selectively remove different combinations of impurities will be critical to addressing this world challenge. The technology provides a means to greatly eliminate costly cleaning operations and minimize plant downtime in this ~$5 billion market. Industrial and Enhanced energy and operating efficiency will be achieved through reduced required pretreatment and enhanced fouling resistance, leading to extended use cycles and improved water flux over the lifetime of the membranes. This SBIR Phase II project will produce thin film composite reverse osmosis (RO) membranes comprised of precisely sulfonated polysulfone polymers in the ~100-nm thick range on a porous support. These novel membranes will provide a long sought after revolution in water purification membranes with their high resistance to chlorine for disinfection and ability to prevent biofouling. For the first time, they will also efficiently remove monovalent salts that contaminate seawater and brackish water from their mixed salt compositions. Sulfonated polysulfones have been considered previously for RO membranes due to their inherent chemical resistance, but they failed due to low salt rejection at high ionic strengths and their inferiority in salt rejections in mixed salt feedwater. Municipal water requirements are high and their process water is often contaminated with toxic products (boron and arsenic moieties, hydrocarbons, perfluorinated surfactants, biofilms), making reuse difficult to impossible technically and economically. This project advances material synthesis and material processing through precisely sulfonated polymers. Phase II will take advantage of these advances to optimize the membrane coating process, scale it to pilot quantities, and measure resistance to a range of impurities found in tap water reuse, industrial water purification, as well as in purification of brackish surface and groundwater and highly saline seawater.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.