SBIR Phase II: Chemically Resistant Membranes for Water Purification

SBIR第二期项目将开发突破性的聚合物膜，通过反渗透净化水。它将解决全球公认的对清洁饮用水的需求，这是由影响到生活在缺水地区的数十亿人的人口增长和城市化驱动的。来自不同地理位置和不同类型的水（例如，海水、工业废水、自来水回用）不同，能够选择性去除不同杂质组合的分离膜对于解决这一世界性挑战至关重要。 该技术提供了一种方法，可以大大消除昂贵的清洁操作，并在这个约50亿美元的市场中最大限度地减少工厂停机时间。通过减少所需的预处理和增强抗污染性，将实现工业和增强的能源和运行效率，从而延长使用周期，并在膜的使用寿命内提高水通量。该SBIR二期项目将生产薄膜复合反渗透（RO）膜，该膜由精确磺化的聚砜聚合物组成，在多孔支撑体上厚度约为100 nm。这些新型膜将提供一个长期追求的水净化膜的革命，其高耐氯消毒和能力，以防止生物污垢。 它们还将首次有效地从其混合盐组合物中去除污染海水和微咸水的单价盐。磺化聚砜由于其固有的耐化学性而先前已被考虑用于RO膜，但由于在高离子强度下的低盐截留率和在混合盐给水中的盐截留率的劣化而失败。 市政用水要求很高，其工艺用水往往受到有毒产品（硼和砷部分、碳氢化合物、全氟表面活性剂、生物膜）的污染，使得再利用在技术和经济上难以实现。该项目通过精确磺化聚合物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，将其规模扩大到试验数量，并测量对自来水再利用，工业水净化，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识产权进行评估，被认为值得支持。优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.