STI FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME
“From waste to resources” - Development of membrane-based methods to improve the recovery of pure water and valuable products from the waste

06 September 2018

Project coordinator:

Alexey Volkov

A.V.Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis RAS

Russia

Project partners:

Andrea Moura Bernardes

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

Brazil

Sourja Ghosh

CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute

India

Tao He

Shanghai Advanced Research Institute CAS

China

Lueta-Ann de Kock

University of South Africa

South Africa

 

Funding agencies:

CNPq (Brazil), RFBR (Russia), DST (India), MOST (China), NRF (South Africa)

 


 

Nowadays, any polluted water can be separated to gain the products with the desired quality by using the conventional processes like distillation, crystallization, adsorption, chemical and biological treatment, if the cost and energy intensity of such treatment are not subject of interest. BRICS are the countries consist of i) the regions suffered from the high-density population, developed industry and agriculture, and ii) remotes areas with limited access to infrastructure, electricity and clean water. The advantage of membrane separation is to operate the process even in the case of shortage or no power supply by using low-grade heat or solar energy. Besides, some membrane processes can be operated without phase transition at the relatively low-pressure difference (e.g., ultrafiltration or low-pressure nanofiltration). 

The goal of this project is to develop membrane-based processes that can significantly reduce the energy consumption and the cost or to be operated independently for: 

(i) effective operation in the remote areas to produce the clean water and 

(ii) recovery of organic and inorganic components together with clean water from the polluted water.