Materials that unlock light-controlled specific separations to enable sustainable desalination (LUCENT)

解锁光控特定分离以实现可持续海水淡化的材料（LUCENT）

• 批准号: EP/X042286/1
• 负责人: Cher Hon Lau
• 金额: $ 171.8万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX042286%2F1
• 关键词: Materials; unlock; light; controlled; specific

Recycling urban wastewater into usable clean water is an environmental win.Using renewable energy to power this process reduces its carbon footprint and makes this idea even better.What about obviating waste generation from this low-carbon process by recovering waste components as resources without using chemicals that typically generate more waste?With 380 billion cubic metres of municipal wastewater produced globally in 2020 where every litre of this wastewater contains 0.75 mg of Zn, 285,000 metric tonnes of Zn can be recovered from global municipal wastewater. This is about 2% of the world's total Zn consumption in 2021. In a UK context, about 4300 tonnes of Zn can be recovered from UK municipal wastewater per year - about 5% of the Zn imported into the UK. However, the recovery of heavy metals from municipal wastewater is not practiced currently and these valuable resources are lost to the environment as the effluents of treated wastewater are discharged into the environment. This is due to the low metal concentrations in this wastewater and the recovery of metals from such dilute mixtures with legacy technologies typically create more waste. Moving towards a circular economy, it is crucial that these valuable metals are reclaimed without creating more wastes in its own right.To solve such a global challenge, there is a need to re-think how metal-metal separations should be achieved, where the current focus is only on recovering metals from waste streams with high enough metal content. We should also consider how this process can be achieved in-situ of existing processes as well as obviating waste generation associated with chemicals used for separating metals from each other or to regenerate separation media.In this Fellowship I propose to design and engineer photo-responsive covalent organic frameworks, a class of microporous polymers with tailorable pore sizes, to achieve zero-waste specific metal-metal separations in-situ of desalination. I will use recent advancements in photo-modulated desalination to engineer a library of covalent organic frameworks that can specifically and reversibly complex with a target metal cation, separating various metal types from each other in complex and dilute mixtures into reusable high-purity metal streams.Light-responsive, zwitterionic molecules can separate cations and anions from water, and monovalent cations from divalent ions, as a function of their tailorable metal compatibility via chemical functionalisation. With training in computational simulations , I will design a series of chemically-functionalised zwitterionic photo-switches that can be embedded within the pores of covalent organic frameworks to separate metals from each other via a novel separation mechanism underpinned by size selection and specific metal complexation. I will validate the concept of light-controlled specific metal-metal separation in-situ desalination using these novel materials as adsorbents and membranes in bench-scale experiments using model and complex mixtures and real-world municipal wastewater samples. I will close the desalination waste loop associated with fabrication and end-of-life of desalination media by exploring the use of additive manufacturing technologies that reduce waste generation during membrane fabrication and depolymerisation techniques to recycle spent desalination media into reusable chemical compounds, respectively. Beyond exploiting the concept of light-controlled specific separations to unlock desalination as a circular economy solution, I will work with other researchers to explore using this technology in other applications such as organic solvent nanofiltration, drug delivery, self-cleaning coatings. I will also perform life cycle assessment studies to evaluate the sustainability and feasibility of technologies developed here for metal recovery from municipal wastewater.

将城市废水回收到可用的清水中是一种环境胜利。可再生能源为这一过程提供动力，可以减少其碳足迹并更好地使这个想法变得更好。什么是通过将废物零件的恢复为低碳的流程来消除浪费，而无需使用380亿个含量的化学物质，而无需使用更多的化学物质，而无需使用380亿个量化的化学物质？含有0.75毫克的Zn，可以从全球市政废水中回收285,000吨的Zn。这大约是2021年全球ZN消费的2％。在英国的背景下，每年可以从英国市政废水中回收约4300吨的Zn - 约占进口到英国的Zn的5％。但是，目前尚未实行从市政废水中回收重金属，这些宝贵的资源损失了，因为经过处理的废水的废水已排放到环境中。这是由于该废水中的金属浓度低，并且从稀稀混合物中恢复了金属与遗产技术通常会产生更多的废物。朝着循环经济发展，至关重要的是，这些有价值的金属在不产生更多废物本身的情况下被收回。为了解决这样的全球挑战，需要重新考虑如何实现金属金属分离，而当前的重点仅在于从具有足够高的金属含量的废物流中恢复金属。我们还应该考虑如何在现有过程的原位实现这一过程，并消除与用于将金属分离的化学物质相关的废物产生或再生分离媒体。在此研究金，我建议设计和工程师的光子响应性共价有机框架，以分离型号的零孔，以分离零孔，以分离零孔，以实现零孔，并以零孔的质量为单位，以零件的零孔，以均匀的零件以及适合于零体的零件。淡化。 I will use recent advancements in photo-modulated desalination to engineer a library of covalent organic frameworks that can specifically and reversibly complex with a target metal cation, separating various metal types from each other in complex and dilute mixtures into reusable high-purity metal streams.Light-responsive, zwitterionic molecules can separate cations and anions from water, and monovalent cations from divalent ions, as a function of their通过化学官能化来量身定制的金属兼容性。通过计算模拟的培训，我将设计一系列化学功能功能化的zwittionic Zwitterion照片开关，可以将它们嵌入共价有机框架的孔中，以通过尺寸选择和特定金属络合的新型分离机制将金属分开。我将使用这些新型材料作为吸附剂和膜在台式实验中使用模型和复杂的混合物以及现实世界中的市政废水样品来验证光制特定的特定金属 - 金属分离原位脱盐的概念。我将通过探索使用添加剂制造技术的使用来关闭与制造和脱盐介质终止寿命相关的淡化废物环，这些技术在膜制造过程中减少了废物的产生，并分别将消耗的淡化介质回收到可重复使用的化学化合物中。除了利用光制特定分离的概念以将海水淡化作为循环经济解决方案解锁外，我还将与其他研究人员合作，在其他应用中使用该技术探索，例如有机溶剂纳米过滤，药物输送，自我清洁涂料。我还将进行生命周期评估研究，以评估此处开发的技术从市政废水中回收的可持续性和可行性。