WaterCAMPWS Research
WaterCAMPWS researchers are committed to solving the world's water supply problems through the development and application of new technology. New technology will enable the creation of a sustainable new water infrastructure, whereby wastewaters are locally purified without discharging harmful wastes to the environment, energy and valuable minerals are recovered, and waters are conserved and used locally. WaterCAMPWS nurtures novel ideas and facilitates supply-enhancing technologies for creating potable water via desalination and reuse, disinfection, and decontamination.
New water purification technologies focused on the nexus between Water and Energy and Water and Health have the potential to reduce the quantities of energy and chemicals now used to treat water and can create new methods to desalinate, reuse, decontaminate, and disinfect waters, enabling nations to gain new waters for human use from different types of source waters, including those that are not now considered usable. [Source: Shannon, M. A., P. W. Bohn, M. Elimelech, J. G. Georgiadis, M. J. Mariñas, and A. M. Mayes, “Science and Technology for Water Purification in the Coming Decades,” Nature 452, p. 301-310, 2008.]
Water and Energy
WaterCAMPWS research in the theme area of Water and Energy, led by David Cahill (UIUC) and Mark Shannon (UIUC), seeks to gain new waters for human use from reuse and desalination, while reducing and/or gaining energy and chemical usage.
Research Highlights
- Co-sponsored by the Cyprus government and the European Union, the Concentrated Solar Power-Desalination of Seawater (CSP-DSW) project at the Cyprus Institute focuses on the design of a dual-purpose (power and water) plant driven by concentrated solar power. The desalination subsystem contains a multi-effect distillation (MED) unit. Heat exchangers in the MED dominate the capital cost and determine the efficiency of the MED. WaterCAMPWS researchers have established of a single-effect test bed at the University of Illinois to obtain the preliminary data required for the design of a five-effect unit in Cyprus.
- Water and ion transport in nanochannels and nanopores play a central role in designing new passive and active membranes for water purification. Using nanocapillary array membranes, WaterCAMPWS researchers are developing quantum, atomistic (molecular dynamics), continuum and multiscale simulation tools to elucidate fundamental phenomena governing water and ion transport in nanochannels and nanofiltration membranes. They have found that the molecular nature of the ion and water are important factors influencing ion concentrations, velocity profiles and other fluid characteristics in confined nanochannels.
- Irreversible fouling in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) is a key obstacle to the efficient reclamation and reuse of wastewater. Nanofiltration (NF) membranes that resist irreversible fouling could replacing the current microfiltration/ultrafiltration-to-reverse-osmosis sequence in MBRs with a single nanofiltration step. WaterCAMPWS researchers have fabricated ultrafiltration (UF) membranes that resist irreversible fouling by incorporating polyacrylonitrile-graft-poly(ethylene oxide) (PAN-g-PEO) copolymers into the casting dope of commercial PAN UF membranes.
Research Efforts
- Residual Minimization and Solar Thermal Desalination: Development of new materials and processes to (1) reduce energy expenditure for desalination by a factor of two relative to reverse osmosis at infinite dilution, (2) minimize the discharge of liquid and other residuals for inland desalination to less than 5% of total flux, and (3) to desalinate water via cooling a thermal electric generator powered by solar heating.
John Georgiadis, UIUC: fluid transport and ion separation with phase change
Benito Mariñas, UIUC: testing and characterization of RO membranes in hybrid separation system
Anne Mayes, MIT: low adhesion energy material with high ice nucleation potential membrane
Mark Shannon, UIUC: energetics and fabrication of system
Ron Shen , UC Berkeley: ice-water specific sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy - Pressure-driven and Electrokinetic Membrane Water Filtration: For pressure driven filtration, synthesize multifunctional material systems and structures to meet the dual technical objectives of (1) increasing water permeability an order of magnitude while increasing contaminant rejection and membrane strength and robustness and (2) minimizing biological, organic, and inorganic fouling. For electrokinetic membrane ion separation, to remove hydrated ions from water stream via electrically biased nanopore interactions of hydrated ions within double layers.
Narayana Aluru, UIUC: molecular dynamics study of electrokinetic ionic fluid flows across multiple length scales
Olgica Bakajin, Porifera Inc.: carbon nanotube membranes
Paul Bohn, Notre Dame: fluorescent study of transport of constituents in single nanopores,br>David Cahill, UIUC: fundamental measurements of thermodynamic partition, and interfacial transport coefficients
Jim Economy, UIUC: synthesis of advanced UF, NF, and RO membranes
Menachem Elimelech, Yale: fundamental investigation of adhesion energy of foulants on and within membranes, and control strategies
John Georgiadis, UIUC: MRI of fluid transport through nanoporous materials
Anne Mayes, MIT: synthesis of advanced UF, NF, and RO membranes
Benito Mariñas, UIUC: contaminant transport characterization through UF, NF, and RO membranes in separation systems
Jeff Moore, UIUC: synthesis of novel molecules with defined pore size and chemical functionalization for integration into NF and RO membranes
Shaurya Prakash, Ohio State: nanofluidic ionic transport measurements
Mark Shannon, UIUC: energetics and fabrication of systems - Membrane Bioreactor Separation Fundamentals and Technology: Establish membrane bioreactors as an economical and reliable process for direct water reuse through the fundamental understanding of separations of suspended and dissolved organics to obtain high membrane flux and reduced fouling; develop new membranes; optimize membrane cleaning and operating strategies, and increase the net generation of energy via efficient separation of organics and anaerobic conversion to methane while maintaining high biological activity.
Menachem Elimelech, Yale: fundamental investigation of adhesion energy of foulants on and within membranes, and control strategies
John Georgiadis, UIUC: MRI of fluid transport through MBR
Anne Mayes, MIT: synthesis of materials that resist fouling
Wen-Tso Liu, UIUC: development and testing of MBR systems for water reuse
Mamadou Diallo, CalTech: synthesis of dentritic materials for nutrient recovery
