Technology Overview

Fresh water shortage around the world is increasing at a rapid rate and converting seawater into potable water is the obvious solution to this water shortage problem. However, the conventional thermal desalination processes and Reverse osmosis (RO) process are highly energy intensive. Recently, biomimetic membranes using proteins have been shown to reduce the desalination energy consumption significantly. However, the drawback of these bio-assisted membranes is their stability to the applied pressure. EWTCOI has developed a fully functionalized graphene oxide based thin film composite based nanofiltration membrane for low pressure desalination. The membrane can be used to reduce the load to RO in any application such as desalination. It can also be used for de-mineralisation, dye-salt fractionation, and macromolecular sieving in pharmaceutical, chemical and diary industries.

EWTCOI is currently looking for industry partners to licence the technology and to bring that to market.

Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages

• Fully functionalized GO based TFC membrane
• Flexible to coat onto flat sheet & hollow fiber
• Chemically and thermally stable
• Highly hydrophilic (operates at lower pressure)
• Resistant to fouling (reduces cleaning frequency)

Potential Applications

• Pre-treatment to RO (to reduce load)
• Desalination
• Dye-salt fractionation
• Industrial water treatment
• F&B / Pharmaceutical
• Product separation & concentration

Customer Benefit

Reduces the overall operating cost by about 15-20%