3D Printed Membrane Supports and Spacers for Fouling Reduction

Abstract

The water-energy crisis has become the severe issue of the world for the last few decades as a result of the global warming’s effects which leaded the sea water desalination to be the frontier solution. Although there are many ways to desalinate the sea water, the desalination technologies have recently focused on the membrane treatment methods due to their energy harvesting properties with high treatment performance. Between all the membrane operations, forward osmosis (FO) process has taken a lot of attention with its energy efficiency and relatively high water flux as well as its easy progressing. On the other hand, one of the vital issue for the water desalination membranes: membrane fouling has increased the researches related to the membrane modules, especially the membrane spacers since it has been observed for many times that fouling is reversely affected by the turbulence which can be controlled by the existence of membrane spacers. Here, we use the de novo technology, 3D printing for the bespoke production of membrane spacers ans supports, which will also allow us to practically change the shape and optimize the water flux-fouling nexus and see the effects of shear stress and material physical properties to mitigate fouling.