(285a) Using Additive Manufacturing to Advance the Design of Water Treatment Devices

The use of non-traditional sources of water (e.g., seawater and wastewater) is essential to supporting human life on earth. While seawater desalination will remain an indispensable technology, its large energy demand necessitates the development of complementary wastewater reclamation and reuse strategies. Fit-for-purpose water, one envisioned opportunity, utilizes distributed treatment systems to provide water for localized reuse at the potable or non-potable quality demanded by its intended application. In this manner, the separation is tailored based on the chemical composition of the source water with the end-use requirements in mind. Separation devices fabricated from block polymers provide a versatile platform that can help address the technical hurdles associated with this emerging paradigm. In particular, the performance of the block polymer membranes can be controlled through thoughtful design of the macromolecular precursors to effect selective separations through affinity-based adsorption, electrostatic interactions, and catalytic conversion of target solutes. In this talk, we will discuss how additive manufacturing can be used 1) to transform block polymer materials into high-affinity, high-capacity sorbents with hierarchical structures and 2) to access emergent transport mechanisms through charge-patterning of block polymer membranes. Through these examples, we will demonstrate that additive manufacturing provides several opportunities for re-envisioning the design and fabrication of multifunctional separation devices that are molecularly engineered for the purification and conservation of water resources.