The overarching goal of this research project is to develop technologies for beneficial salinity management. Specifically, the project focuses on the energy and resources recovery from reverse osmosis (RO) desalination concentration, which can reduce the cost associated with desalination operation and minimize the environmental impact associated with the disposal of desalination concentrate. Th...

Membrane fouling properties and different physical cleaning methods for forward osmosis (FO) and reverse osmosis (RO) laboratory-scale filtration systems were investigated. The membrane fouling, with respect to flux reduction, was lower in FO than in RO when testing an activated sludge effluent. Crossflow velocity, air-scouring, osmotic backwashing and effect of a spacer were compared to determ...

Electric fields are commonly used for manipulating particles and liquids in microfluidic systems. In this work, we report stationary electro-osmotic flow vortices around dielectric micropillars induced by ac electric electrolytes. The characteristics theoretically predicted based on the well-known phenomena of surface conductance concentration polarization a charged object. flows arise from two...

Polymer-based membranes have advanced or novel functions in the various membrane separation processes for liquid and gaseous mixtures, such as gas separation, pervaporation (PV), reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration (UF), microfiltration (MF), other critical applications of water purification, solvent concentration, recovery [...]

Overview Membranes in the outer hair cell lateral wall form a naturally occurring nanostructure which acts as a microelectromechanical (MEM) system. Computational and optical techniques are being developed to predict, verify and refine the description of nanoscale behavior in the outer hair cell (OHC) lateral wall. The biological, engineering and physics expertise of an interdisciplinary three-...

The treatment of metal-contaminated sediment generated in environmental dredging projects often requires both reduction and remediation, the electric field has good application prospects integration remediation. In this study, based on electro-osmosis, vacuum, vacuum electro-osmosis methods, a detachable test system was made. Experiments three methods were carried out independently remediation ...

We report a simple yet highly efficient chemical motor that can be controlled with visible light. The motor made from a noble metal and doped silicon acts as a pump, which is driven through a light-activated catalytic reaction process. We show that the actuation is based on electro-osmosis with the electric field generated by chemical reactions at the metal and silicon surfaces, whereas the con...

This paper presents some aspects of forward osmosis coupled with reverse osmosis using a recirculating draw solution, to produce desalinated water or for dewatering/concentrating a feed stream, with some data provided from a number of operational sites. Many of these aspects are applicable to other osmotic processes and provide an insight into where they may be appropriately considered. A compa...

Electro-osmosis is the flow produced by the action of an electric field on a fluid with a net charge, which is created by the Zeta potential and confined in the Debye layer. This basic phenomenon in the electro-kinetic transport plays an important role in the microfluidic systems being explored today because it can be applied to a variety of MEMS devices. This paper presents global and point-wi...