Yu Jie Lim received his B.Eng. degree in Chemical Engineering (First Class Honours) from the National University of Singapore (2018) and PhD at Nanyang Technological University (2023). Water scarcity and climate change are major challenges of our time. The goal of Yu Jie’s research is to tackle these global issues by leveraging on his multifaceted background in chemical and environmental engineering.

Desalination has become the most suitable solution to meet our growing demand for freshwater. At present, there are approximately 20,000 desalination plants worldwide, generating more than 100 million cubic metres of freshwater each day to maintain the sustenance of 300 million people around the globe.¹ With the ever-increasing demand for desalinated water, two key challenges are poised to arise: on the one hand, reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions generated by desalination plants and, on the other hand, solving the polluting problems of brine, the main waste product of desalination.

Yu Jie is addressing these challenges through three research objectives. His first research objective is to develop high-performance separation membranes within the water-energy nexus. Specifically, he is seeking various possibilities by simultaneously looking into strategies on synthetic nanochannels, polymer chemistry, and nanoarchitecture design to develop biomimetic membranes that could purify water at lower cost and with less energy. Preliminary modelling results revealed that the prototype biomimetic membranes could lead to 7.2% energy savings or 25% reduction in environmental footprint with respect to commercial desalination membranes.² In recognition of his research works on thin-film composite and biomimetic membranes, his PhD thesis was selected as the first-place recipient of the best Doctoral Dissertation Award (2024) granted by the American Water Works Association.

Yu Jie’s second objective is to develop mechanically robust high-pressure reverse osmosis membranes for brine management applications toward minimum liquid discharge. The development of such membranes could result in a 3-fold decrease in energy consumption of hypersaline brine desalination with respect to thermal-based technologies. His third objective is to research on cost-effective technologies for lithium extraction from seawater and desalination brines to support the global energy transition. Amid the call for green energy and deep decarbonization of electricity production, lithium has emerged as a critical resource as it is a primary ingredient in batteries and energy storage applications. In particular, he is developing nanofibrous adsorptive membranes that could selectively extract lithium from dilute sources (<0.5 ppm).

References

¹ Y. J. Lim, K. Goh, M. Kurihara and R. Wang, J. Membr. Sci., 2021, 629, 119292
² Y. J. Lim, G. S. Lai, Y. Zhao, Y. Ma, J. Torres and R. Wang, J. Membr. Sci., 2022, 661, 120957