Development of Nanocomposite Membranes and Sustainable Processes for Water Treatment and Nutrient Reclamation

由于人口和工业活动的迅速增长、淡水的枯竭、新出现的污染物的查明和更严格的环境条例的执行，世界各地的传统水和废水处理技术正受到挑战。另一方面，人们越来越认识到废水是一种“可再生”资源，为创造水、营养物和能源等增值产品提供了机会。在处理研究方面的进展，如膜过滤和高级氧化工艺，已经产生了从废水中生产高质量出水的可靠方法。然而，这些过程面临挑战，包括膜污染和产生潜在致癌的消毒副产物。在纳米科学和纳米技术的时代，受这些领域启发的新型材料具有巨大的发展潜力，具有更高的选择性和降低环境应用的成本。考虑到动物粪便通常含有较高的养分负荷，将生活污水处理技术推广到从动物粪便中回收养分也很重要。因此，显然需要开发和推进饮用水生产、海水淡化和废物资源回收方面的新技术和现有技术。该研究项目的目标是通过以下方式开发新型材料和工艺，提高效率并降低能耗：(1)开发用于水和废水处理的高效纳米材料膜工艺；(2)改进工艺以提高废物的增值产品产量。该研究项目的成果有望推进尖端水和废水处理方面的知识，降低成本，创造更安全的产品，为水工业提供物理和化学弹性纳米材料膜技术，延长工艺寿命，降低清洁成本，并将废水处理领域扩展到废物营养物质的回收和再利用，从而生产出更高质量的营养产品。

Conventional water and wastewater technologies worldwide are being challenged with rapid growth of population and industrial activities, depletion of fresh water, identification of emerging contaminants and implementation of more stringent environmental regulations. On the other hand, momentum is gaining in recognizing wastewater as a "renewable" resource, presenting opportunities to create value-added products such as water, nutrients, and energy. Advances in treatment research, such as membrane filtration and advanced oxidation processes, have resulted in sound approaches to producing quality effluent from wastewater. However, these processes face challenges, including membrane fouling and generation of potentially carcinogenic disinfection byproducts. In the era of nanoscience and nanotechnology, novel materials inspired by these fields have tremendous potential for the development of promising technologies, yielding greater selectivity and lowering the cost of environmental applications. Extending treatment technologies for domestic sewage toward nutrient recovery from animal manure is also important, considering that animal manure contains generally higher nutrient loads. Therefore, there is a clear need to both develop and advance novel and existing technologies for drinking water production, desalination, and waste resource recovery. The objective of this research program is to develop novel materials and processes that improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption, through: (1) developing efficient nanomaterial based membrane processes for water and wastewater treatment, (2) refining processes to improve yields of value added products from waste. The outcome of this research program is expected to advance knowledge in cutting-edge water and wastewater treatment, lowering costs and creating safer products, provide physical and chemical resilient nanomaterial-based membrane technologies for water industries extending process life and lowering cleaning costs, and extend the field of wastewater treatment toward recovery and reuse of nutrients from wastes, allowing for production of higher quality nutrient products.