ResearchOrganic Opto-Electronic Materials Lab

Membranes for Desalination

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Water is an irreplaceable resource where life would be impossible without the intake of fresh water. Recently, the shortage of drinking water has become a serious problem due to climate change. According to UN development program, two-thirds of the whole word people will be in water insufficiency status until 2025. To solve this problem, seawater desalination has been a strong candidate, as 70% of the earth is covered with seawater, and most of the large cities are located near the coast. So far, water desalination by thermal treatment has been mainly used but reverse osmosis (RO) has received great attention after the development of polymer membranes. However, the use of such polymer membranes are still limited by the huge energy consumption required for desalination. Nowadays, reducing the energy consumption and increasing the performance of membrane are key issues. In our group, we are focusing on developing a highly enhanced permeability and high selective membranes for next generation.