PhD project

Catalytic membranes for micropollutants removal

Introduction
In the past decades, small organic pollutants (micropollutants (MPs)) have become an urgent global issue. Since many of them are toxic, endocrine-disrupting, mutagenic or potentially carcinogenic to humans, MPs pose a significant threat to water quality and public health. This project project aims to use a catalytic membrane to achieve the high-efficiency elimination of MPs.

Keywords
Micropollutants, membrane, catalysis

Technological challenges
Among the published catalytic membranes, titanium dioxide (TiO₂) has been widely used as the photocatalyst because of its low cost, non-toxic and photocatalytic performance. However, the degradation efficiency of catalytic membranes containing TiO₂ is still limited in the treatment of MPs. A new type of catalytic membranes with higher degradation efficiency is still urgently needed.

Research goals
We aim to not only fabricate a catalytic membrane with high degradation efficiency but also study how the catalytic process and membrane separation influence each other and how to achieve a synergistic effect between them.