Polymer Membrane in Water Filtration | Renewable Solutions for Fouling Mitigation

Curious about the challenges of fouling in polymer membranes used for water filtration?

Here is a brief overview on how water treatment plants/research sectors combat the challenge of membrane fouling by conventional methods like surface modification and chemical cleaning processes.
And finally some exciting new cleaning techniques inspired by renewable energy solutions (based on my own experiences).
This talk on Polymer membrane was intended for Master's 2nd semester students (2024 intake) at the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering.

Click below the time stamps to access particular segment:
0:00 - Introduction
00:54 – Membrane filtration
02:27 - Common membrane & fabrication techniques
06:30 – Example of fabrication techniques (my work)
10:22 – membrane separation Process (Pressure driven)
14:35 – Fouling in membrane separation (biofouling)
17:16 – Fouling treatments (membrane modifications)
20:23 - Fouling treatments (my work 1)
23:14 - Fouling treatments (my work 2)
26:55 - Fouling treatments (membrane cleaning)
28:30 – Disadvantage of conventional cleaning
29:52 – Light guided membrane cleaning (my recent work 1)
37:43 – Visible Light guided membrane cleaning (my recent work 2)

I, Pritam Das, a current research associate from University of Edinburgh have made this presentation.
I hope this talk enhances your understanding on polymer membrane and some recent approaches on fouling mitigation.

Feel free to like and leave comments below if you have any questions!

Acknowledgement:
My recent work 1 was funded by French ANR grant and recent work 2 has been funded by UK EPSRC grant and Scottish water.

Publications mentioned:
1. Das, P.; Remigy, J.-C.; Lahitte, J.-F.; van der Meer, A. D.; Garmy-Susini, B.; Coetsier, C.; Desclaux, S.; Bacchin, P. Development of Double Porous Poly (ε - Caprolactone)/Chitosan Polymer as Tissue Engineering Scaffold. Materials Science and Engineering: C (2020), 107, 110257. doi.org/10.1016/j.msec.2019.110257.

2. Tripathi, B. P.; Das, P.; Simon, F.; Stamm, M. Ultralow Fouling Membranes by Surface Modification with Functional Polydopamine. European Polymer Journal (2018), 99, 80–89. doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2017.12.006.

3. Nayak, K.; Das, P.; Kumar, A.; Tripathi, B. P. Amphiphilic antifouling membranes by polydopamine mediated molecular grafting for water purification and oil/water separation. Journal of Membrane Science (2021), 630, 119306.