Development and application of multifunctional nanocomposite membrane in water treatment
Membrane technology is significantly critical for the supply of clean drinking water, recycle of industrial water and reuse of urban wastewater etc. However, the optimization of membrane system and selectivity of membrane materials are still bottlenecks for the water treatment process using membrane technology. Nanocomposite membrane is a novel generation of membrane technology in water treatment. Our strategy is taking advantages of nanomaterials or nanometer effects in order to modulate the interfacial characteristics of membrane surface and membrane process. As the pretreatment measures, low-pressure nanocomposite ultrafiltration membrane coupling with conventional drinking water treatment process, is used to remove the colloids, microbes, algae and metal pollutants in the raw water. For the advanced water purification process, the high salt rejection and water permeability are obtained by the high-pressure NF/RO nanocomposite membrane in the presence of reduced membrane fouling. More importantly, the high removal efficiency of micropollutants (pharmaceuticals, disinfection by-products, odors substances etc.) is realized by the high-pressure NF/RO nanocomposite membrane in the presence of high-tolerant resistance to chlorine. Multifunctional nanocomposite membrane is a promising strategy for the micropollutant degradation in the presence of high-efficiency filtration. In the future, diverse nanocomposite membrane processes with low-energy consumption would be the next generation technology of water and wastewater treatment.