Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment (dLCA) of Nano-enabled Membranes-based Membrane Distillation Technologies

Membrane-based technologies for water desalination and purification have increasingly gaining prominence to address the issues related to water security and destruction of aquatic ecosystems not just in Hong Kong, but also globally. Recent advances in nanotechnology enhanced membranes has resulted in improvements in terms of membrane performance and fouling. However, the environmental impacts associated with the production of these nano-enabled membranes is significantly higher than conventional membranes. In order to develop sustainable nano-enabled membranes, it is imperative to quantify and evaluate the trade-offs between membrane performance and the environmental impacts at the early stages of research on novel membranes. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an appropriate tool to systematically account for environmental impacts, such as carbon emissions, all the way from raw material extraction to the disposal of any product, process or technology. However, the inherent lack of detailed datasets for emerging technologies contributes significant uncertainties, which makes the adoption of traditional LCA challenging. To address the inherent uncertainty, this work presents a novel dLCA framework that holistically assesses sustainability of NEMs through collaborative research between life cycle researcher and membrane engineer. There are several objectives to be achieved: 1) Assess the “cradle-to-gate” life cycle environmental impacts for emerging NEMS to be deployed for water and wastewater treatment applications using; 2) Coordinate and prioritize future research with membrane engineers based on findings from the first traversal of the dLCA framework; 3) Guide decision-making towards sustainable design and selection of emerging NEMs for water and wastewater treatment applications through iterative traversals of the dLCA framework. Successful completion of this work will be transformative in its capacity to advance the understanding of the relationship between systemic environmental benefits and implications for the sustainable adoption of emerging NEMs in water and wastewater treatment plants.