Are you driven by a passion to tackle the environmental challenges of the built environment using cutting-edge technology? Does the thought of contributing to sustainable wastewater treatment excite you? If so, this Engineering Doctorate (EngD) at the University of Twente, focusing on electrically driven membrane separation technologies to combat the rise of contaminant release in industrial wastewater, is calling your name! This two-year post-master’s degree is designed for technological designers who are ready to take on real-world challenges. Our programme combines an educational journey with a practical design project.
Aqueous waste streams (10 – 100 m³/h), contaminated with, e.g. micro/nanoplastics, organic solvents, and/or oxygen-containing molecules are nowadays produced in industry. Enabling water reuse is one of the prime sustainability targets. Reactive Electrochemical Membranes (REM), which rely on a combination of physical and chemical separations to convert wastewater organic contaminants into non-toxic compounds such as water and carbon dioxide offer an economically attractive solution for the treatment of large quantities of waste streams. In the NWO Perspectief project on Recovery and Circularity of Valuable Resources program (ReCoVR), our aim is the recovery of industrial wastewater by developing durable REMs.
THE MISSION OF THIS DESIGN PROJECT With this project, we want to produce Reactive Electrochemical Membranes with well-designed porous structures on tubular supports having a minimum surface of 12 cm².
Your mission is to build on the existing sub-stochiometric titanium dioxide REM developed within the ReCoVR project, and take it a step further, by developing a simple and safe approach to producing tubular REM.
Next to that, the design of a prototype of tubular membrane housing adapted for electrochemical experiments will be required.
Your main goal is to empower stakeholders with useful insights into appropriate reactive electrochemical membrane synthesis procedures and a REM housing prototype to facilitate the transfer and deployment of such innovative membrane systems.
To this end, the successful candidate will tackle the following tasks:
- Conduct a comprehensive literature review to identify the current synthesis routes for tubular-based reactive electrochemical membranes, their performances, and the current reactor design limitations.
- Prepare tubular-based REM and characterize their microstructure.
- Design and prototype a tubular cross-flow REM testing station.
- Test the tubular-based REM produce and compare the performance with conventional ceramic membranes.
- Test the effectiveness of the REM with real wastewater effluents as produced in the industry and refine its design based on operational feedback.
- Envision the next step of the provided solution.