WITH Melbourne notching up its driest year on record, a new multi-million-dollar water research project is about to get under way at Victoria University’s Werribee campus.
Professor Stephen Gray, director of VU’s Institute for Sustainability and Innovation, will head the $8.6-million research project, which he describes as “an exciting development”.
He will lead a new Advanced Membrane Technologies for Water Treatment Research Cluster that will work to improve membrane design to dramatically increase the efficiency of recycling and desalinating water.
“Australia has a variable climate and experiences water shortages. It’s vital for countries like ours to use desalination as a source of water,” Prof Gray said.
The membranes now used for desalination are usually made of plastic and, when fouled water is passed through, they remove salt and other unwanted materials.
The three-year research aims to improve the efficiency of the membranes. Various aspects will be studied, including:
• EXAMINING the make-up of the membranes at an atomic level using computer simulations.
• LOOKING at the character of the membranes, such as how big they are and how many holes they have.
• DEVELOPING a new type of membrane, perhaps using plastics and ceramic particles.
• EVALUATING how tiny marine creatures such as diatoms can desalinate sea water through their bodies, using low amounts of energy to do so.
Prof Gray, previously a research scientist at CSIRO, is hoping for good results from the research, which will put Australia at the forefront of innovative membrane development.
The cluster team includes research scientists from the University of NSW, Monash University, the University of Melbourne, RMIT, Curtin University of Technology, the University of Queensland, Deakin University and Murdoch University. The research has been made possible through CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, with $3.7 million of the total cost coming from Federal Government funding of the National Research Flagship Collaboration Fund.
Desalination plants could become a major industry around Australia’s coastline. Perth has a desalination plant, one is being built at the Gold Coast and another is under consideration for Sydney.
