The declining of water flux over time due to fouling represents the main time onstream issue of the existent membranes in wastewater treatment. Thus, to prevent and mitigate membrane fouling is considered the key challenge to improve performance and extend the use of membranes in water treatment and water recovery applications. Novel membranes with improved properties will lead to reduced energy consumption, reduced cleaning and consumption of chemicals, as well as less frequent replacement of membranes. This will decrease the cost of the filtering system, making possible their installation and adaptation according to the customer’s needs.
The NYMPH project will develop methods for functionalization of commercial ultrafiltration (UF) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes. The NYMPH project starts from TRL 3 and will develop and test up to TRL 5. The manufacturing technology aims to design and obtain membranes for wastewater decontamination installations with improved water flux, stability, antifouling and antibacterial properties exceeding the performance of current commercial membranes. They will be tested by the two industrial partners 1) for cleaning intake water to fish farms (Akvafresh, NO) and 2) for plant extraction process in pharma (Global Res. srl, RO)
SINTEF will focus on novel membrane manufacturing methods based on surface modification including hydrophilization treatment, chemical coupling, and surface coating.
The project will develop a flexible platform for membrane surface modifications that can be easily scalable and applied for membranes in various water treatment applications where antifouling and anti-scaling properties are relevant. The fabrication process will be developed to be easily scalable for large production such as direct surface modification inside existent commercial membrane modules. The novel membranes obtained will have improved characteristics for 1) water supply in the fish-farming industry and 2) residual nanoparticles and organic hydrocarbons from plant extracts used in pharmaceutical industry.
The Consortium is composed of two applied research organizations, the project coordinator -Institutul Național de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Metale Neferoase și Rare (IMNR, Romania) and SINTEF ( Norway), and two industrial partners, Akvafresh Norway and Global Research SRL from Romania with strong expertise in the proposed field.
The NYMPH project is a research project financed under MANUNET/ ERA-NET program.
We are actively looking for interested end-users from various producing CO2 industries for discussions and partnerships.