WRF Awards Research Contract to Examine Self-Healing Membranes for Water Reuse

The Water Research Foundation recently awarded a contract to Yale University to begin research on a project titled Self-Healing Hydrogel-Composite Membranes: From Proof of Concept to Water Reuse Application. The main goal of the project is to evaluate the performance of first-generation composite membrane under a wide range of conditions to optimize self-healing for faster technology transfer to industry. Self-healing refers to the ability of materials to restore their original properties after being damaged. Many self-healing chemistries — such as using natural diffusion of polymeric chains or using microencapsulated healing agents — can't be easily applied to water filtration because of moisture sensitivity.