SBIR Phase II: Selenium Biopolymer Spacers to Prevent Biofouling of Reverse Osmosis Modules

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will build upon the data compiled during Phase I in which Selenium Ltd. worked with university and commercial partners to develop a novel anti-biofouling technology to be deployed in water filtration membranes and membrane spacers. The technology explores the use of organo?]selenium compounds and their ability to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) while being covalently bound to a substrate. As biofouling remains one of the largest problems to be solved in water filtration, the integration of the proposed technology into numerous filtration components at the point of manufacture emphasizes the technology?fs flexibility and capability to mitigate this problem in a commercially viable and economic way. The objectives in this Phase II project will be to optimize integration strategy specific to the manufacturing parameters of each filtration component (i.e. feed spacers, polyamide reverse osmosis and polysulfone ultrafiltration membranes, etc.). Further objectives will be to integrate organo-selenium compounds into pilot scale modules, developing a data set measuring antifouling capabilities in real world scenarios with the help of commercial partners. Selenium anticipates the results of this project will concretely identify the technical integration strategy and added value for delivering produced water at reduced costs. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is based on the notion that mitigating the industry problem of biofouling will reduce energy and maintenance demand, thus decreasing the costs associated with water filtration and produced water. Furthermore, the technology has broad applicability to a number of other filtration markets such as pharmaceutical and oil and gas, which could benefit equally from the reduction in biofouling. As the necessity to produce drinkable water from a growing number of sources emerges as a leading societal need, the ability to reduce costs positions the technology to be deployed worldwide allowing for populations across the world to benefit. By increasing the efficiency to produce drinkable water from sources such seawater and wastewater, water producers may produce drinkable water at reduced costs with less cleaning. The ability to combat biofouling continues to be an ongoing area of development. While a broad spectrum of technologies have been employed to explore antifouling properties, few have had much success. Should the technology substantially reduced the problem of biofouling while proving viable in the commercial manufacturing of filtration equipment, it could be considered one of the most influential innovations the filtration market has seen in the past decade.