Prof. Baolin Deng
Curators' Distinguished Professor, William Andrew Davidson ProfessorMissouri Water Center, University of Missouri
Speech Title: Designing Nanocomposite Membranes for Specific Water Treatment Applications
Abstract: One of the grand challenges afflicting human society is inadequate access to water resources with suitable water quality. Membrane water treatment is expected to play an increasingly important role in addressing the water challenge. In this presentation, we will discuss the development of advanced polymer-matrix nanocomposite membranes for water purification. The focus is to illustrate how membrane properties could be designed to meet specific applications and to probe the importance of porous structures in the membrane for the control of membrane performance. By exploiting a vast range of properties enabled by different nanomaterials, the nanocomposite membranes could be tailored to meet specific water treatment applications by tuning their structure and physicochemical properties (e.g., hydrophilicity, porosity, charge density, and thermal and mechanical stability) and introducing unique functionalities (e.g., antibacterial, photocatalytic, and adsorptive capabilities).