Nanofiltration membranes review: Recent advances and future prospects

One of the greatest challenges to the sustainability of modern society is an inadequate supply of clean water. Due to its energy-saving and cost-effective features, membrane technology has become an indispensable platform technology for water purification, including seawater and brackish water desalination as well as municipal or industrial wastewater treatment. However, membrane fouling, which arises from the nonspecific interaction between membrane surface and foulants, significantly impedes the efficient application of membrane technology. Preparing antifouling membranes is a fundamental strategy to deal with pervasive fouling problems from a variety of foulants. In recent years, major advancements have been made in membrane preparation techniques and in elucidating the antifouling mechanisms of membrane processes, including ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis and forward osmosis. This review will first introduce the major foulants and the principal mechanisms of membrane fouling, and then highlight the development, current status and future prospects of antifouling membranes, including antifouling strategies, preparation techniques and practical applications. In particular, the strategies and mechanisms for antifouling membranes, including passive fouling resistance and fouling release, active off-surface and on-surface strategies, will be proposed and discussed extensively.

Antifouling membranes for sustainable water purification: strategies and mechanisms

Water pollution is a global problem threatening the entire biosphere and affecting the life of many millions of people around the world. Not only is water pollution one of the foremost global risk factors for illness, diseases and death, but it also contributes to the continuous reduction of the available drinkable water worldwide. Delivering valuable solutions, which are easy to implement and affordable, often remains a challenge. Here we review the current state-of-the-art of available technologies for water purification and discuss their field of application for heavy metal ion removal, as heavy metal ions are the most harmful and widespread contaminants. We consider each technology in the context of sustainability, a largely neglected key factor, which may actually play a pivotal role in the implementation of each technology in real applications, and we introduce a compact index, the Ranking Efficiency Product (REP), to evaluate the efficiency and ease of implementation of the various technologies in this broader perspective. Emerging technologies, for which a detailed quantitative analysis and assessment is not yet possible according to this methodology, either due to scarcity or inhomogeneity of data, are discussed in the final part of the manuscript.

Sustainable technologies for water purification from heavy metals: review and analysis

Polymer-matrix nanocomposite membranes for water treatment

Jun Yin

Papers

Polymer-matrix nanocomposite membranes for water treatment

Graphene oxide (GO) enhanced polyamide (PA) thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane for water purification

Fabrication of a novel thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane containing MCM-41 silica nanoparticles (NPs) for water purification

Attachment of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) onto thin-film composite (TFC) membranes through covalent bonding to reduce membrane biofouling

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs)/polysulfone (PSU) mixed matrix hollow fiber membranes for enhanced water treatment