报告题目：Low Pressure Membrane Filtration:  Where Science, Engineering, and Public Health Meet

主讲人：  Haiou Huang  （ Johns Hopkins University , Center for Water and Health 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205）

时间：3月18日（周二）16:30

地点：方正大厦301会议室

报告摘要： 
Low pressure membrane filtration (LPMF) is a novel water treatment technology emerging in the end of the 20th century.  Due to its low energy requirement, LPMF has been increasingly used worldwide to provide treated waters safe for domestic uses and environmental applications.  Mechanical sieving has been considered as the dominant mechanism for LPMF.  However, our recent studies clearly showed that physicochemical interactions between membranes and aquatic constituents (especially colloidal aquatic organic matter) govern LPMF of water and wastewaters.  These interactions are strongly dependent upon the chemistry of polymer-water interfaces and the ambient aquatic environments.  The fundamentals of these interactions have not been fully understood, primarily due to the diverse and unstable nature of aquatic substances.  This leads to great uncertainty on the performance of membranes employed in engineering applications.  A novel laboratory-based approach was consequently established to overcome this engineering problem.  This approach, similar to jar tests employed in conventional water treatment, enables membrane engineers to predict the performance of full-scale LPMF systems based on fast laboratory tests.  The outcomes of these basic and applied studies were further extended into the public health domain.  The technological sustainability of LPMF was evaluated under the settings of low-income areas.  It was found that existing small-scale LPMF systems are capable of providing sustained removal of pathogens, but the availability of renewable energy is the major limiting factor.  Overall, LPMF provides important opportunities for the integrations of energy and water sciences, through environmental engineering approaches, to meet the urgent requests of public health.