Fabrication of Low-Fouling Composite Membranes for Water Treatment

A sharp growth in the world's population coupled with urbanization results in a rapidly increasing demand in water consumption. Water shortage has plagued many communities around the world [1,2]. It is reported that more than 1.2 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water [3]. In order to avoid possible global crises due to depleting available resources of clean and potable water, the need is inevitable to maximize the treatment of wastewater, minimize the discharge from water treatment plants, and tap into the virtually unlimited available saltwater in the oceans. During the last decade, pressure-driven membrane processes such as micro-ltration (MF), ultraltration (UF), nanoltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO) have been thoroughly investigated and used for water treatment and desalination [4]. However, one of the main problems arising upon the operation of the membrane units is the membrane fouling, which seriously hampers the application of membrane technologies [5].