PhD Studentship: Tackling Membrane (Bio)Fouling

Worldwide decentralized water and wastewater systems, including in UK rural areas and Islands, can have a high cost and be unreliable, often failing during treatment. This project is part of the EPSRC Programme Grant “Decentralized Water Technologies”, a consortium of several Universities, aiming at accelerating the delivery of sustainable and low-cost decentralised water and wastewater technologies, by bringing most up-to-date bioscience and engineering together, so off-grid systems are configured with confidence. The project at the University of Edinburgh specifically addresses a pressing issue affecting many industries, particularly water and wastewater treatment industries: surfaces in wet environments (bio)foul. This is a particular challenge during membrane filtration in water and wastewater treatment, where (bio)fouling forms on the membrane surface, reducing water quantity and quality produced, increasing energy costs and requiring frequent harsh cleaning methods. Ultimately, cleaning becomes inefficient and irretrievable surface damage occurs, requiring complete replacement of the membranes. Our objective is to develop efficient cleaning strategies for membranes. This will involve understanding what major foulants reduce membrane performance in order to inform and develop more efficient cleaning strategies, as well as optimize and test innovative self-cleaning and anti-biofouling membrane polymeric coatings currently being developed by the team. The coating is light responsive, i.e. it will change its physical properties at the nano and microscale when subjected to visible light, allowing for surface biofouling to be removed with visible light, remotely and contactless. This translates to more sustainable cleaning practices by removing the need for chemical cleaning techniques with hazardous and toxic cleaning agents, or the need for harsh physical cleaning methods. Moreover, enhanced material reusability is achieved, translating to lower replacement needs and lowering operational costs.