This paper discusses the removal of trace concentrations of pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), and other ?emerging? organic contaminants by nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes. The study investigates the removal by examining interactions with typical components found in surface waters, includ...

This paper and presentation cover results on the ability of an electropositive filter to remove organic and inorganic debris (nanoparticles, silica colloids, humic acid, and polysaccharides) from ultrafiltration (UF) filtrate and quantify the resulting improvements to process performance from using the polished water to backwash the membranes. The...

The occurrence, fate and ecotoxicology of emerging organic micropollutants including pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), and personal care products (PCPs) have been of interest in recent years. Nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) have emerged as effective alternatives to conventional water trea...

This presentation will cover our work to date in developing and testing new membrane materials for use in pervaporation desalination applications. Our work has specifically targeted high TDS produced waters (TDS > 50,000 mg/L) as these are the most challenging for conventional membrane based desalination systems. This is relevant to brackish water ...

This paper describes a project that evaluated the physical and surface chemical properties of nanocomposite polymeric films containing imogolite nanotube. Research aimed at characterizing and quantifying the influence of nanotubes dispersion and alignment on the mass transport of water through nanocomposite membranes is presented...

Recovery of rare earth elements (REEs) from oil and gas produced waters could ease the United States dependence on China's current domination in REE production. Furthermore, NF separation practices could be implemented nationwide for extraction of REEs from wastewaters, which will contribute to the strengthening of the United States economy and ind...

The food-water-energy nexus hits close to home for the membrane technology community because of the clean water solutions we offer. Our research aims at the core of the nexus by offering an innovative solution that provides a new low-energy water source specifically to the agriculture industry. The advances made through our research will be applica...

Membrane surface properties play a key role in the separation processes specifically in membrane distillation and non-polar solvent separation from water. For oil/water separation applications, various surface wettability characteristics, like superhydrophilic-underwater oleophobic (Wei, Sun et al. 2017, Jiang, Chen et al. 2018, Zhang, Wang et al. ...

Membrane distillation is one of a few options that have been explored for desalinating oil and gas produced waters, particularly those with total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations in excess of 50,000 mg/L. Many of the previous efforts in this area have been limited to studying simple electrolyte solutions composed of sodium chloride. In this pr...

Mixtures of hydrocarbons and water are ubiquitous across natural and industrial flows. Such mixtures present environmental challenges and economic opportunities. The recovery of hydrocarbons from oil and gas produced waters is particularly relevant given the growth of domestic energy production. Treatment of produced waters, either for disposal or ...

The use of magnetic fields to cause changes in the properties of aqueous media presents new opportunities for improving the performance of membrane systems. Many promising, and possibly paradigm shifting, results have been obtained in this area indicating that ion (Szczes, Chibowski et al. 2011, Otero, Rodriguez et al. 2018) and water (Holysz, Szcz...

The use of magnetic fields to cause changes in the properties of aqueous media presents new opportunities for improving the performance of membrane systems. Many promising, and possibly paradigm shifting, results have been obtained in this area indicating that ion (Szczes, Chibowski et al. 2011, Otero, Rodriguez et al. 2018) and water (Holysz, Szcz...