Advanced Water Treatment

NREL develops novel technologies, along with innovative manufacturing practices, to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of water treatment.

Capabilities

NREL offers the following advanced water treatment capabilities.

Multifunctional Membranes for Desalination

NREL has developed porous nanofiber composites and functional nanocatalysts that can be formed into functional filters and purification membranes to improve water treatment technology performance.

Advanced Manufacturing of Water Filter Elements and Membranes

NREL develops innovative roll-to-roll and other manufacturing techniques to reduce the cost and energy intensity of membrane and water filter technology manufacturing.

Emerging Areas

• Large-scale remediation
• Advanced process configurations

Patent

Porous Block Nanofiber Composite Filters Patent No. 9409111

Publications

Desalinating a Real Hyper-Saline Pre-Treated Produced Water via Direct-Heat Vacuum Membrane Distillation, Water Research (2022)

Performance Improvement of Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolyzer Cells by Introducing In-Plane Transport Enhancement Layers, Electrochimica Acta (2019)

Fully Printed and Integrated Electrolyzer Cells With Additive Manufacturing for High-Efficiency Water Splitting, Applied Energy (2018)

Gravure Coating for Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing of Proton-Exchange-Membrane Fuel Cell Catalyst Layers, Journal of the Electrochemical Society (2018)

Chemical Stability via Radical Decomposition Using Silicotungstic Acid Moieties for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells, Journal of the Electrochemical Society (2018)

Development of Algae Biorefinery Concepts for Biofuels and Bioproducts: A Perspective on Process-Compatible Products and Their Impact on Cost-Reduction, Energy and Environmental Science (2017)

Synthesis and Characterization of Perfluorinated Anion Exchange Membranes, ECS Transactions (2017)

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