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Wen's Research Group
Wen Zhang, Ph.D., P.E., BCEE
Principal Investigator
Professor
Phone: (973) 596-5520
Fax: (973) 596-5790
Email: wen.zhang@njit.edu
Office Location: Colton Hall 211
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NJIT Ph.D. Student, Fangzhou Liu, published his first article on microwave assisted membrane filtration technology
Recently, Fangzhou Liu, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at NJIT, recently published his first research article in the journal Environment international. This paper reported our latest findings on microwave membrane tehcnolgoy and particularly examined the “Influences of Microwave Irradiation on Performances of Membrane Filtration and Catalytic Degradation of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA)”. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0160412020319243
Fangzhou’s advisor, Dr. Wen Zhang, aims to integrate microwave catalytic reactions into a ceramic membrane filtration to treat perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)-containing water. Under microwave irradiation, approximate 65.9% of PFOA in the feed solution was degraded within a hydraulic time of 2 min due to the microwave-Fenton like reactions, and the degradation efficiencies of PFOA via continuous filtration were evaluated under different operation conditions (e.g., w/o microwave irradiation, different flow rates and catalyst coating densities). This work at NJIT provides a new perspective on the development of reactive membrane-enabled systems for destruction of refractory PFAS. This project prompts the transformation of passive membrane filtration to the next-generation reactive membranes that can proactively degrade water contaminants and prevent surface fouling, and to enable novel membrane processes in chemical conversion and separation. The research is currently funded by the United States Department of Interior via Bureau of Reclamation (Agreement number: R19AC00106) and partially supported by a EPA SBIR phase I fund (Federal Contract #: 68HERD19C0014).