Emerging Technologies for Water Treatment and Resource Recovery

Abstract:

Growing global water scarcity has intensified the need for innovative solutions for treating alternative water sources containing harmful contaminants. For example, groundwater contamination by toxic heavy metals such as chromium poses serious risks to environmental and public health. This seminar will discuss our recent efforts to develop reactive membranes to address these challenges. Reactive membranes, enabled by novel materials (e.g., MoS₂ nanomaterials), integrate separation and chemical transformation processes, offering fast reaction kinetics and enhanced contaminant removal.

Meanwhile, brine streams produced by desalination and industrial processes often contain valuable resources but are typically treated as waste. This talk will also highlight recent advances in solar evaporation technologies as a promising approach for resource recovery from brine and wastewater. We will discuss case studies on integrating membrane separation and solar evaporation to address key technical challenges.

Biography:

Professor Baoxia Mi is the Wood Calvert Chair of Engineering and a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She received BS and MS from Tianjin University in China, Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a postdoctoral training at Yale University.  She directs the research and educational activities of the MI Lab, focusing emerging processes, such as membrane separation, solar evaporation, and application of novel materials for water purification, resource recovery, and brine management. Dr. Mi’s achievements include an NSF CAREER Award, Hellman Fellows Award, CAPEES/Nanova Young Investigator Award, and Bakar Spark Prize.