View Technical Program - Levant Desalination Association

GLOBAL WATER SHORTAGES:
MEMBRANE NANOTECHNOLOGY FOR WATER RESOURCES
DEVELOPMENT
Professor Nidal Hilal
Director of Centre for Water Advanced Technologies and Environmental Research
(C WATER) - Swansea University -United Kingdom
REF# IDA_DM2010-Hilal
ABSTRACT
The amount of currently available fresh water on earth is in continuous decline due
to rapidly increased consumption as a result of population growth, industrial use
and climate change. According to new findings, one in three people are enduring
one form or another of water scarcity. Therefore there is an urgent need to address
such world water shortages. Membrane technology increasingly proves to be one of
the most practical solutions and the application of nanotechnology to membrane
separation processes has shown to be extremely valuable to reduce cost and
improve efficiency.
The lecture will focus on the global water shortages and will show how the
application of nanotechnology and in particular, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)
to membrane separation processes, can provide us with modern tools that
may be applied for further costs reduction of water. Since 1994, the research of
Professor Hilal has focused on developing and applying nanotechnology to process
engineering, particularly in the fields of water treatment, membrane separation,
(bio)colloidal interactions and the measurement of complex fluid properties. A
major recent achievement has been the development of the smallest colloid probe
reported in the literature, the coated colloid probe technique and the cell probe
technique. The presentation will focus on the use of such probes to quantify directly
the force of interaction of coated colloid or microbiological cells in a direction normal
to the membrane surface, at which the interaction is taking place. The potential
of the technique has been demonstrated when such probes are used to assess
the rejection of colloids at the entrance to membrane pores, and the adhesive
characteristics (fouling) of synthetic membranes. The presentation will also show the
recent development of AFM as a nano-viscometer.
70
Water Reuse and Desalination: Experience and Opportunity
TECHNICAL PROGRAM