Advanced Membranes for Treatment of Oily and Highly Impaired Waters

The overall goal of my PhD research was to design and develop advanced anti-fouling and self-cleaning membranes for treating impaired waters. Initial work focused on the development of membranes to treat produced water, which is oily Wastewater that is co-produced during oil and gas exploration. Economical, environmentally sustainable treatment of the large volumes of produced water is a grand challenge for oil and gas companies. While membranes offer many advantages over more conventional treatment methods, membrane-based treatment processes for oily waters often fail due to membrane fouling. Therefore, the primary objective of my doctoral research was to design membranes that limit foulant accumulation and provide an easy, chemical-free way to remove any attached foulants during the filtration of oily and other impaired waters. My strategy was to modify the surface of Ultrafiltration (UF) membranes with polymer nano-layer coatings using methods that enabled nano-scale control over the chemical and environmentally responsive conformational properties of grafted polymer layers.