The U.S. Department of Interior awarded Xiaoli Ma and Yin Wang $246,919 in March to develop nanofiltration membranes for desalinating water. Ma is an assistant professor, materials science and engineering, and Wang is an associate professor, civil & environmental engineering, in UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science.
The project aims to overcome some common obstacles to the wider use of desalination. Ma and Wang will work on developing high-flux, robust, and scalable nanofiltration membranes with high salt rejection, and systematically study the membrane’s stability and fouling behaviors. The membrane materials will be based on an emerging class of porous polymers, which feature ordered and tunable pore size, tailored functionalities, and excellent stability.
Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population experience severe water scarcity at least one month per year, Ma says. “Desalination has been increasingly used to tackle this challenge, but it remains expensive due to the enormous amounts of energy required,” he says.
The membranes to be developed by Ma and Wang will make desalination more energy-efficient and affordable, enabling broader deployment of desalination as a means to increase water supplies.
Duo has developed other cost-effective, clean-water treatments
Wang and Ma recently created a passive sampler that can monitor the presence of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water flow over time. The project is backed by a one-year, $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. The breakthrough was finding materials that can pull PFAS from the passing water and be cost-effective for government agencies to deploy.
They are also collaborating on developing membranes and adsorbents to remove heavy metals, organics, pharmaceuticals, and PFAS from drinking water and wastewater.