Tuesday, Nov. 17, :10p.m. Featheringill Hall Room 138 “Osmotically Driven Membrane Processes: The Science, Engineering, and Applications, and the Path to Adoption” DR. TZAHI CATH Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering Director, Advanced Water Technology Center (AQWATEC) Colorado School of Mines ABSTRACT Processes and systems must be simple in order to successfully make it to the market. Forward osmosis (FO) has the promise of being that simple process that can treat almost any impaired stream, being both the pretreatment process and the desalination process, and doing it in one step and at low energy and maintenance expenditures. To make FO successful one needs a good FO membrane, a good draw solution, a good draw solution re-concentration process, and good system integration. These are more than the simple requirements for successful implementation of reverse osmosis (a good membrane and good pretreatment). Commercial FO membranes are offered by a small number of companies, some of which cannot provide robust FO membranes that can treat highly impaired waste streams, and some limit the availability of the membranes to the research community. Many universities are doing tremendous work developing new FO membranes, but these membranes are also not available to the entire research community. Novel draw solutions are being developed by universities and National Labs, but recent research shows that the simple salts and their mixture are still the best draw solutions for most applications. And reconcentration processes are specific for the different draw solutions and are specifically developed for the novel draw solutions or are just RO in various configurations for the simple salts draw solutions. System engineering and integration is the critical point for the development of future, successful FO applications. In recent years we see signs that FO has the potential to be successful in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, in direct potable reuse (osmotic MBRs), and in the desalination industry. Special focus in the seminar will be on potential successful applications and example of applications that might not mature. BIOGRAPHY Dr. Tzahi Cath is an Associate Professor of environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. His main field of research is membrane processes for wastewater treatment, desalination of saline and hypersaline brines, reclamation of impaired water for potable reuse, and energy from water and wastewater. Another field of his research focuses on life cycle assessment and techno-economical evaluation of these processes and the development of decision support tools for selection and optimization of treatment processes. Dr. Cath is a principal investigator on many research projects focusing on the integration of membrane contactor processes in seawater and brackish water desalination, in domestic and industrial wastewater treatment, and in life support systems. Dr. Cath holds PhD and MS degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno and a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tel Aviv University. He is currently the director of the Advanced Water Technology Center (AQWATEC) at Colorado School of Mines, and until recently served the leader of the Advanced Engineered Systems Thrust of the Engineering Research Center ReNUWIt.