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

随着人口和工业活动的快速增长、淡水的枯竭、新出现的污染物的识别以及更严格的环境法规的实施，世界各地的常规水和废水技术正受到挑战。另一方面，认识到废水是一种“可再生”资源的势头正在增强，这为创造水、营养物质和能源等增值产品提供了机会。膜过滤和高级氧化工艺等处理研究的进步导致了从废水中产生高质量废水的可靠方法。然而，这些过程面临挑战，包括膜污染和潜在致癌消毒副产品的产生。在纳米科学和纳米技术时代，受这些领域启发的新材料具有巨大的潜力，可以开发出有前途的技术，产生更高的选择性，并降低环境应用的成本。考虑到动物粪便通常含有较高的营养负荷，将生活污水的处理技术扩展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的新技术和现有技术。这项研究计划的目标是开发新的材料和工艺，通过以下方式提高效率和降低能源消耗：(1)开发高效的基于纳米材料的膜工艺用于水和废水处理，(2)精炼工艺，以提高废物中附加值产品的产量。这一研究计划的成果有望促进尖端水和废水处理方面的知识，降低成本和创造更安全的产品，为水务行业提供物理和化学弹性纳米材料膜技术，延长工艺寿命和降低清洁成本，并将废水处理领域扩展到从废物中回收和再利用营养物质，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.**