Membrane distillation for sustainable desalination and water treatment

包括英国在内的世界各国目前正面临着从河流、池塘或湖泊以外的来源生产淡水的需求。这对淡水资源有限的国家至关重要，对可能遭受意外干旱的地区也是如此。全世界对人类使用和工业活动用淡水的需求分别为10%和20%(农业占剩余的70%)。然而，在工业化国家，工业消耗了一半以上的生活用水。世界各地对可排入河流或其他水体的水的水质的监管政策正变得越来越严格，因此，推动使用能够产生所需质量但足迹较低且比目前使用的传统技术更经济的水的技术至关重要。因此，该项目的目的是通过开发具有长期稳定性(即抗湿性能)的高渗透性石墨烯基膜来促进可持续水净化技术(膜蒸馏，MD)的应用。MD被认为是可持续的，因为进行分离所需的低级热能可以通过热太阳能集热器或发电厂和其他工业作业的废热来获得。此外，它还允许在单级工艺中处理高盐度盐水，100%地去除杂质，不需要昂贵的加压膜系统，因为它是在常压下运行的。此外，开发的MD膜可以提高分离效率，并从包括纺织工业在内的一系列工业过程中的海水淡化和废水中回收有价值的产品。

The world, including the UK, is currently facing the need for producing fresh water from sources other than rivers, ponds or lakes. It is of paramount importance for countries where freshwater resources are limited, but also for regions that can suffer from unexpected draughts. Demand for fresh water for human use and industrial activities worldwide are 10 and 20%, respectively (agriculture accounts for the remaining 70%). However, in industrialised nations, industries consume more than half of the water available for domestic use. Policies regulating the quality of water that can be discharged back into rivers or other water-bodies is becoming stricter worldwide, and therefore is crucial to advance on the use of technologies that can generate the water with the required quality but lower foot print and more economically than the conventional technologies currently used. Thus, the aim of this project is to advance on the use of a sustainable technology for water purification (membrane distillation, MD) by developing highly permeable graphene-based membranes with long term stability (i.e. anti-wetting properties). MD is considered to be sustainable as the low-grade thermal energy required to do the separation can be obtained by means of thermal solar collectors or waste heat from power plants and other industrial operations. In addition, it allows to treat highly saline brines with 100% rejection of impurities in a single stage process, with no need for costly pressurised membrane systems, as it is operated under atmospheric pressure. Furthermore, the developed MD membranes can propel the separation efficiency and recovery of valuable products from desalination brines and wastewater effluents in a range of industrial processes including the textile industry.