Novel antifouling and antibiofilm coating technologies for membrane applications: A market research study

膜技术是水净化（包括海水和微咸水）以及废水处理不可或缺的平台。然而，膜污染，这是由膜表面和污垢包括有机物，无机物和微生物之间的非特异性相互作用引起的显着损害水的过滤效率。污垢层形成的重要初始步骤是调节膜的沉积，该调节膜由蛋白质、电解质、有机分子组成。因此，可以防止调理膜的初始沉积的技术具有抵抗生物污垢的潜力。目前用于对抗膜表面上的生物膜形成和污染的涂覆技术是不充分的，并且由于多个改性步骤而在适应方面具有显著挑战。基于我们多年的涂层研究，UBC团队最近开发了一种一步通用涂层技术，可应用于任何基材，无需预处理。这种平台涂层技术成本低、稳定、显示出优异的增透和减透膜功效，并且通过简单的水基工艺（浸涂或流涂）适用于所有材料，使它们非常适合于膜改性。因此，本次市场评估的重点将集中在水处理膜的抗菌和抗菌涂层上，以更好地了解其市场关键特性，并评估我们涂层技术的潜力。这将使我们能够确定一个滩头市场，以探索涂层平台的商业化。本市场研究的目标是确定可寻址细分市场的规模，并提供竞争格局和潜在客户/合作伙伴的清晰描述。

Membrane technology is an indispensable platform for water purification, including seawater and brackish water, and for wastewater treatment. However, membrane fouling, which arises from the nonspecific interaction between membrane surface and foulants including organic, inorganic matter and microorganisms significantly compromise the efficiency of water filtration. An important initial step in the formation of fouling layer the deposition of a conditioning film consists of proteins, electrolytes, organic molecules. Thus, technologies that can prevent initial deposition of conditioning film have the potential to resist the biofouling. Current coating technologies for combating biofilm formation and fouling on membrane surface are inadequate, and has significant challenges in adaption due to multiple modification steps. Building on our many years of antifouling research, the UBC team has recently developed a one-step universal antifouling coating technology which can be applied to any substrate without pre-treatment. This platform coating technology is low cost, stable, show excellent antifouling and antibiofilm efficacy, and applicable to all materials via a simple water-based process (dip or flow coating) make them highly suitable for membrane modification. Accordingly, the focus of this market assessment will focus on the antimicrobial and antifouling coatings for water treatment membranes to better understand their market-critical characteristics and to evaluate the potential for our coating technology. This would allow us to identify a beachhead market to explore the commercialization of the coating platform. The goals of this market research are to establish the size of addressable market segments and to present a clear portrait of the competitive landscape and of potential customers/partners.