Keynote Speaker - Professor Davide Mattia

Davide Mattia, FIChemE, CEng, is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Bath. He earned a Meng in Materials Engineering in 2002 from the University ‘Federico II, Naples, Italy and a PhD in Materials Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA, in 2007. He joined Bath in 2008 as a Lecturer and was promoted to a personal Chair in 2016. His current research focuses on using membranes to address environmental challenges, including the sustainable manufacturing of materials and the removal of organic micropollutants from water. He is a past Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow and currently holds an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship in Water Engineering. He serves as Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bath and is a member of the EPSRC Engineering Strategic Advisory Team and of the European Membrane Society council.

Keynote (Liquid Separation)

3D printed fouling-resistant COMPOSITE membranes

Davide Mattia

Faculty of Engineering, The University of Bath, UK

(d.mattia@bath.ac.uk)

The formation and growth of fouling layers is a long-standing problem for the continuous operation of membrane processes. Membrane patterning is considered as a potential route for fouling mitigation by promoting shear stress and creating localised turbulence near the membrane surface. Patterned membranes have been fabricated using a variety of techniques, e.g., moulding and stamping, which lack sufficient fidelity and flexibility, limiting their actual use. 3D printing allows overcoming these challenges by enabling the design and fabrication of complex patterns impossible to manufacture otherwise [1]. In this paper we report the fabrication of 3D printed composite membranes with a double-sinusoidal, i.e. wavy, pattern, resulting in enhanced fouling resistance whilst reducing water, chemical cleaning and energy consumption [2].
 
The 3D composite membrane was obtained by conformal deposition of a thin polyethersulfone (PES) selective layer onto a 3D printed wavy support. Flat (non-patterned) and wavy (patterned) 3D composite membranes were characterised and tested in terms of permeance, rejection, and anti-fouling property using oil-in-water emulsions and by filtering Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) through a cross-flow ultrafiltration set-up. CFD simulations in terms of velocity profile, local surface shear rate, and transmission probability were used to optimise the design of the wavy pattern and the experimental observations. 
 
Results revealed that the wavy composite membrane had significantly higher permeance recovery compared to the flat one, with negligible irreversible fouling and rejection >96% for both oil and BSA. The wavy 3D composite membranes maintained the same level of permeation after 10 complete filtration cycles, using only pure water as cleaning agent. 
 
References:
1. Low, Z.-X.; et al., J Mem Sci 2017, 523, 596-613.
2. Al-Shimmery, A.; et al., J Mem Sci 2019, 574, 76-85.

 

Professor Davide Mattia
Professor Davide Mattia