SusMeDia-Engineering membrane adsorbers for sustainable dialysis

RSE Saltire Facilitation Workshop Award

In this project we will design selective materials, the Mixed Matrix Membrane Adsorbers (MMMA), suitable for the regeneration of dialysis wastewater, to improve the process sustainability and the patients wellbeing.
Dialysis is a life-saving therapy that allows to purify the blood of patients with renal disease, but requires 120 L of ultrapure water per treatment, which are obtained from 500 L of tap water.
The regeneration of dialysis wastewater would allow to recycle it for other scopes or, more efficiently, in the dialysis process itself, reducing the volume of water involved and enabling the development of devices like the wearable artificial kidney, that improve the patients wellbeing and health.
In this project we aim at the dialysate purification by using new materials, the MMMAs, formed by selective sorbents immobilized onto porous membranes, which combine the high purification capacity of sorbents with the ease of operation and fast response of membranes.