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The objective is to develop
functional polymers and additives for
manufacturing membranes with reduced fouling and
high selectivity, including polymers and
processes that give isoporous membranes.
Membrane fouling is one of the major problems in
aqueous membrane purification processes. It
leads to a loss of membrane performance, makes
time and cost intensive cleaning steps
necessary, and shortens the membrane lifetime.
Conventional polymer membranes have a wide
distribution of pore sizes, with the oversized
pores carrying a disproportionate amount of the
flux, making them prone to fouling by
particulate plugging. Research in this project
is investigating several approaches to reduce
membrane fouling, including the incorporation of
additives selected or designed to reduce
fouling, and the development of processes for
making membranes with uniform pore sizes (isoporous
membranes).
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