Team Profile
Fresh water scarcity, energy crisis and environmental pollution are bottlenecks limiting the healthy and sustainable progress of human civilization in 21st century. Blue ocean is the world’s greatest thesaurus of water and energy. Research and development of advanced membranes and membrane processes for desalination and power generation facilitate the production of fresh water and clean energy ecofriendly and cost-effectively.Our research involves the synthesis of novel membrane materials and nanomaterials for robust membranes, the fabrication of advanced membranes for precise separation under critical environmental conditions, and the integration of advanced membrane system for novel applications. Our research is multidisciplinary ranging from materials sciences and polymer engineering, chemical engineering, to environmental science and engineering.
Further details about our research group can be found at: http://www.huyunxia-group.com
Principal Investigator: Professor Yunxia HU
Yunxia Hu, Ph.D., Professor, PI. She earned numerous awards including China “1000 talents program”, “Taishan Scholar oversea experts of Shandong Province”, and “Shandong Young Scientist”. Dr. Hu received her PhD degree in polymer science and engineering from University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, and obtained her postdoctoral training from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Yale University. From 2013 to 2016, she worked as a full professor in Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and led a seawater utilization group as a PI. From 2014 to 2015, Prof. Hu worked in MIT (USA) as a visiting professor to develop the next-generation ultrathin high-performance desalination membrane. From 2017, Prof. Hu joined the state key lab of separation membranes and membrane processes in Tianjin Polytechnic University and served as a vice director. Dr. Hu mainly focuses on the development of membrane-based seawater utilization technology, including the synthesis of novel functional membrane materials, the fabrication of high performance membranes, and their applications in seawater desalination, power generation and wastewater utilization.
Team members:
Professor Genghao GONG
Genghao GONG, Ph.D., Professor, “Tianjin Thousand Talents Program” young scholar. Professor Gong received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Hiroshima University, Japan and worked there as a postdoctoral fellow from 2014 to 2016, and then became an Assistant Professor. In 2017, he joined the State Key Lab of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes in Tianjin Polytechnic University and served as professor. Professor Gong’s research interests are mainly focused on the synthesis of functional organic-inorganic hybrid silica materials, the design and fabrication of organosilica layered-hybrid membranes, and their applications in molecular separation via nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, organic solvent nanofiltration, pervaporation and gas separation processes
Assistant Professor Shaolu LI
Shaolu Li, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Dr. Li received his B.E. in Pharmaceutical Engineering from Nanjing University of Science & Technology in 2007 and obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Nanjing University in 2012. From 2015 to 2017, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Peking University. In 2017, he joined the State Key Lab of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes in Tianjin Polytechnic University as an assistant professor. Dr. Li’s research interests are mainly centered around the synthesis and fabrication of functional porous organic framework materials, design and synthesis of novel membrane materials, and membrane surface engineering for antifouling performance.
Assistant Professor Juan-Ru HUANG
Juan-Ru HUANG, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University in Mar. 2007 and Jan. 2012, respectively. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Department of Environmental Science and Engineering in Tianjin University. From April 2015, Dr. Huang joined School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering in Tianjin Polytechnic University as an assistant Professor. Her research mainly focuses on the design and fabrication of energy materials, separating membranes and their applications in photocatalysis, photoelectrocatalysis, photoelectric conversion, photothermal conversion and separation processes in organic solvent and water-based system.
Postdoc Jing WANG
Jing Wang, Ph.D., Post-Doctor. Dr. Wang received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University, China. In 2017, She joined the State Key Lab of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes in Tianjin Polytechnic University as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Wang’s research interests are mainly focused on the development of novel desalination membranes for high-efficient water purification and the membrane fouling control. Dr. Wang received the funding support from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation in 2017 (2017M621080).
Postdoc Qun WANG
Qun Wang, Ph.D, Postdoctor. Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. in marine chemical engineering from Ocean University of China. In 2017, he joined the State Key Lab of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes in Tianjin Polytechnic University and worked as a Postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Wang’s research interests are mainly focused on the high-efficient reuse of high-salinity wastewater and RO brine via membrane-based power generation techniques, and novel FO process design and applications.
Current Research Area
The Next-Generation of Integrated Membrane Technology
Desalination techniques have been advanced from the first generation of thermo-distillation to the second generation of reverse osmosis membrane process with the significant decrease of cost and energy consumption. The integration of forward osmosis (FO), pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane processes is beneficial to achieving cost-effective and eco-friendly desalination through further decreasing energy consumption and reducing the pollution of concentrated seawater discharge from the current RO process. We aim to develop the next-generation of integrated membrane processes of FO-RO-PRO and optimize the hybrid system via the theoretical simulation and practical operations. Thus, high performance FO and PRO membranes are fabricated to meet the requirements of the integrated membrane processes, and the key parameters including water productivity, power density and capital cost are investigated to optimize the integrated membrane systems.
Applications Oriented Membrane Integration System
The development of application-oriented membrane integration system aims for wastewater reuse, chemicals separation, and food concentration. For example, the integration of FO and MD (membrane distillation) is developed for juice concentration, and the hybrid system of UF and NF is investigated for resources recovery and wastewater treatment of paper-making black liquor.
Membrane Materials Synthesis and Novel Membrane Fabrication
Synthesis of Block Copolymers as Antifouling Membrane Materials
Block copolymers are designed and synthesized to incorporate the specific functionality including hydrophilicity, absorption, and catalytic properties into the polymeric membrane materials including polysulfone, polyethersufone, and polyvinylidene difluoride.
Synthesis of Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Silica Materials as Functional Separation Membrane
Organosilica materials are generally synthesized via a simple sol-gel route and can be designed by incorporating organically bridged groups with the specific functionality into the silica networks to adjust their properties including surface property, the type and size of pore structure, flexibility and absorption. A novel polymer-supported organosilica layered-hybrid membrane consisting of a BTESE-derived silica active layer deposited onto a flexible polymeric substrate was successfully developed. This organosilica membrane is applicable to various separation processes including RO, PV, OSN and gas separation due to their excellent thermal and chemical stability and molecular sieving abilities, thereby having a large potential of wide application in the field of membrane separation.
Novel High-performance Membrane Fabrication
Thin film composite polyamide membrane is the cutting-edge desalination membrane used for nanofiltration, reverse osmosis and forward osmosis membrane. To tailor the structure and properties of TFC polyamide membranes for different applications, we develop numerous approaches to optimize the polyamide formation and support membrane, and to investigate the effects of support surface properties on the formation of polyamide. Thus, we fabricate selective nanofiltration, high rejection reverse osmosis and high flux forward osmosis membranes.
Importantly, aquaporin and nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, and MoS2 are used to fabricate high performance desalination membranes through either bottom-up or top-down approaches. The significant improvement of both permeability and selectivity of novel membranes can be achieved to break the trade-off of perm-selectivity of conventional filtration membranes.
Membrane Surface Engineering & Membrane Fouling
Membrane fouling including inorganic, organic, gel, and microbial fouling, however, especially the irreversible biofouling, has strong negative effects on the operational sustainability and the cost-efficiency of membrane process, thus hampering the application of membrane technology. It is important and practical to develop efficient and universal, ecofriendly and cheap-cost antifouling membranes. Therefore, we develop numerous effective and efficient strategies to engineer membrane surfaces for the fouling mitigation from the perspectives of anti-adhesion, active antibacterial killing and programmed combination antibacterial killing. Moreover, grafting nanomaterials and 3D hyperbranched polymers on membrane surfaces can simultaneously improve their antifouling properties and filtration performances, overcoming the challenges of increasingmembrane transport resistance and thus decreasing membrane permeability from the grafting of linear polymers on membrane surfaces. Our research focuses on the development of simple and facile surface engineering approaches to mitigate membrane fouling and the investigation of their applications in practice.
Selected Publications and others
Xiaochan An, Zhongyun Liu and Yunxia Hu*. Amphiphobic surface modification of electrospun nanofibrous membranes for anti-wetting performance in membrane distillation, Desalination, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2017.12.063
Zhongyun Liu, Xiaochan An, Chunhong Dong, Sunxiang Zheng, Baoxia Mi and Yunxia Hu*. Modification of Thin Film Composite Polyamide Membranes with 3D Hyperbranched Polyglycerol for Simultaneous Improvement in Filtration Performance and Antifouling Properties, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, DOI:10.1039/C7TA07335F
Ning Wang, Tao Wang and Yunxia Hu*. Tailoring Membrane Surface Properties and Ultrafiltration Performances via the Self-Assembly of Polyethylene Glycol-block-Polysulfone-block-Polyethylene Glycol Block Copolymer upon Thermal and Solvent Annealing, ACS Applied Mater&Interfaces, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b06997
Zhongyun Liu, Longbin Qi, Xiaochan An, Caifeng Liu, and Yunxia Hu*. Surface Engineering of Thin Film Composite Polyamide Membranes with Silver Nanoparticles through Layer-by-Layer Interfacial Polymerization for Antibacterial Properties, ACS Applied Mater&Interfaces, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b12314
Ning Wang, Yunxia Hu* and Zongren Zhang. Sustainable catalytic properties of silver nanoparticles supported montmorillonite for highly efficient recyclable reduction of methylene blue, Applied Clay Science, DOI: 10.1016/j.clay.2017.08.024
Zhongyun Liu, Yunxia Hu*, Caifeng Liu and Zongyao Zhou. Surface-independent one-pot chelation of copper ions onto filtration membranes to provide antibacterial properties, Chemical Communications, DOI:10.1039/C6CC06015C
Liu Z., Hu Y.*, “Sustainable Antibiofouling Properties of Thin Film Composite Forward Osmosis Membrane with Rechargeable Silver Nanoparticles Loading”, ACS Applied Materials &Interface 2016, 8 (33), 21666–21673.
刘彩锋, 刘中云, 胡云霞*, 抗菌分离膜的构建策略及其发展方向，化学进展，2017，29（11）：1395-1406。
王涛，王宁，陆金仁，王志宁，胡云霞*, 正渗透膜污染特征及抗污染正渗透膜研究进展，膜科学与技术， 2017, 37 (1) :125-132。
吴青芸，郑猛，胡云霞*，页岩气开采的水污染问题及其综合治理技术，科技导报 2014,13,74-83.