The Centre’s research leaders include:

• Professor Kamal Alameh, Edith Cowan University
• Dr Ralf Cord-Ruwisch, Murdoch University
• Professor Vicki Chen, The University of New South Wales
• Professor Hui Tong Chua, The University of Western Australia
• Dr Marlene Cran, Victoria University
• Professor Joe da Costa, The University of Queensland
• Professor Maria Forsyth, Deakin University
• Associate Professor Ray Froend, Edith Cowan University
• Dr Melina Ginic-Markovic, Flinders University
• Professor Stephen Gray, Victoria University
• Professor Goen Ho, Murdoch University
• Dr Tanya King, Deakin University
• Dr Pierre Le-Clech, The University of New South Wales
• Associate Professor Greg Leslie, The University of New South Wales
• Dr Sophie Leterme, Flinders University
• Dr Nicholas Milne, Victoria University
• Dr Julie Mondon, Deakin University
• Professor Michael Monteiro, The University of Queensland
• Dr Trevor Pryor, Murdoch University
• Dr Peter Sanciolo, Victoria University
• Dr Ho Kyong Shon, University of Technology Sydney
• Dr Thuy Tran, CSIRO
• Professor S. (Vigi) Vigneswaran, University of Technology Sydney
• Professor Huanting Wang, Monash University
• Dr Thomas Yeager, Victoria University
• Professor Linda Zou, University of South Australia

Professor Hui Tong Chua
The University of Western Australia

Hui Tong Chua is a Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Western Australia and an Honorary Professor of the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, China. He is the Chemical & Process Engineering Program Discipline Leader and the Aboveground Engineering Program Leader of the Western Australian Geothermal Centre of Excellence.

Prof. Chua’s expertise is in the areas of thermodynamics as well as heat and mass transfer. The bulk of his professional career is focused on low grade heat driven technologies. His low grade heat driven adsorption chiller technology, developed collaboratively with colleagues from the National University of Singapore and the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, has been patented in Singapore, USA and Europe, attracted more than $3.77 million of competitive funding, and resulted in a technology transfer to a Singapore air conditioning company in 2003. Based on the 2010 Web of Knowledge essential science indicators for the appropriate categories, two of his relevant works are in the top 1% percentile, and 11 of them are in the top 10% percentile. His current h‐index is 13. Hui Tong currently has a patent pending low grade heat driven multi‐effect distillation desalination technology that can boost the freshwater yield of conventional distillation technology by 30%.

NCEDA projects

• Development of a novel low grade heat driven desalination technology

Contact details

Professor Joe da Costa
The University of Queensland

Joe da Costa obtained his PhD degree in Chemical Engineering in 2000 when he joined UQ at a Lectureship level. In 2003 at a Senior Lecturer level, he became an Associate Director of the ARC Centre of Functional Nanomaterials. His major research interests are molecular in sieving silica membranes for gas processing and reaction, liquid separation, desalination, biofuels separation and materials functionalisation.
In 2007, Prof. da Costa founded the Films and Inorganic Membrane Laboratory (FIMLab), which is the premier inorganic membrane research facility in Australia and enjoys international recognition. In 2008/9, UQ spent $1 million on a new FIMLab laboratory for inorganic membrane fabrication and gas/liquid separation/ processing. He was promoted to full Professor in 2010.

Prof. da Costa has made significant contributions to the field of inorganic membranes both in fundamental understanding and innovative applications. He has developed molecular sieve inorganic membranes by precisely controlling the pore size around 3-5 Ǻ. This provided a new understanding on the separation of molecules by size exclusion, where water can permeate through the membrane whilst the passage of the larger hydrate ions is hindered as an example. Recently, Prof. da Costa has been one of the leading researchers in the world in the scale up of inorganic membranes, and in the production of inorganic/metal hollow fibres. In addition, Prof. da Costa and co-workers have developed molecular sieve membranes for desalination based on materials such as silica, carbonised templated silica, metal oxide silica, carbon molecular sieves and zeolites.

Prof. da Costa work is enjoying world recognition, and sharing scale-up and proof-of-concept with industrial partners in Australia, Europe and the Middle East. Currently, he is the project leader in three international projects with collaborators in (i) Germany, (ii) Germany, Denmark, Spain and Latvia under the European Community Framework Program seven (FP7), and (iii) Industrial funded projects by Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. He has also led major research projects in Australia via the (i) Centre for Low Emission Technology, (ii) CRC for Coal in Sustainable Development, and (iii) CO2CRC.

In the last 10 years, Prof. da Costa has published 170 manuscripts, including 104 refereed journals papers, 6 book chapters and 6 patents, while collectively obtaining research grants totalling $35 million, including strong industrial research engagements in Australia, Europe and the Middle East. He has been invited as a keynote/plenary lecturer to more than 10 conferences and by many universities and companies around the world. Prof. da Costa was awarded a UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award in 2006 for his work on inorganic hollow fibre membranes for oxygen separation, and the Centre for Low Emission Technology Research Excellence award in 2009 for his work in scale-up and proof-of-concept of membranes and catalytic membrane reactors in coal gasification processes. In 2011, he was received the Q-index award for outstanding research performance, placing him in the top 1% researcher at The University of Queensland.

NCEDA projects

• High water recovery inland desalination using membrane distillation with ceramic membranes

Contact details

Associate Professor Ray Froend
Edith Cowan University

Ray Froend is an Associate Professor in Environmental Management and member of the Centre for Ecosystem Management at Edith Cowan University as well as the WA Centre of Excellence in Ecohydrology. He has a PhD in Botany from The University of Western Australia (1989) and has since conducted research on the water quantity and quality requirements of terrestrial and wetland vegetation. A/Prof. Froend currently leads a research group at ECU which specialises in vegetation hydroecology and has worked in a range of ecosystems including damplands, lakes, rivers, sandplain heathlands, open woodlands and forests in temperate, Mediterranean, arid and sub-tropical climates. A/Prof. Froend is internationally recognised for his research on impacts of altered water regimes (particularly from groundwater use and climate change) on wetland and terrestrial vegetation, and identification of ecosystem water requirements for water resource planning and management. He is an Associate Editor of Plant Ecology (Springer, international ISI listed). He has published over 176 journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and technical reports and continues to place emphasis on the direct application of research outcomes in environmental management agencies, industry and the community. As sole or joint principle investigator, he has secured over $6.9 million in research project funds and in-kind support since 2000, of which over $4.5 million is from national competitive research funding agencies, with the remainder from State agencies and industry. His current career experience in research project leadership is 44 projects worth almost $8.7 million.

NCEDA projects

• Management of brine disposal into inland ecosystems

Contact details

Professor Stephen Gray
Victoria University

Victoria University Professor Stephen Gray leads two collaborative research projects to increase water recovery from reverse osmosis brine and reduce requirements for expensive evaporation ponds and brine waste disposal.

Professor Gray has been Director of Victoria University’s Institute for Sustainability and Innovation since leaving CSIRO in 2006, and is responsible for the university’s water research program.

He has over 20 years’ research experience in water and wastewater treatment.

One of Professor Gray’s NCED-funded projects investigates new membrane distillation design to treat reverse osmosis brine from brackish water treatment to recover additional water and reduce needs for large evaporation ponds.

This research is a collaborative effort with his VU team, CSIRO’s Advanced Water Treatment research group, Siemens, Osmoflo and GWMWater.

Another project led by Professor Gray investigates the onsite removal of silica from reverse osmosis brines via precipitation, seeded precipitation or adsorption – which will also reduce silica fouling of membranes.

This research at the Murrin Murrin Nickel Refinery involves collaboration with Origin Energy – the focus is Origin’s coal seam gas water – and Hatch. It’s also supported by the Victorian Water Corporation, GWMWater and Coliban Water.

Both projects seek to dramatically increase brackish water recoveries for inland communities and mine operations with limited groundwater resources from current levels of 70-80 per cent (as low as 50 per cent for some bore waters) and stem current losses of 20-30 per cent as waste brine for disposal and/or due to evaporation.

Additionally, the high cost of evaporation ponds – $36 million for 60ha of ponds needed for a five ML/d plant – are an economic disincentive and require an impermeable membrane which adds further expense to construction costs. For instance a double liner adds about $1million/ha to an operation.

Hence processes to recover silica and increase water recovery from reverse osmosis brine have the potential to save companies and communities tens of millions of dollars and provide up to 95 per cent water recovery.

Professor Gray leads a team of more than 25 staff and PhD students at VU developing such multi-disciplinary research projects to deliver research outcomes to meet industry needs.

He is the Australian Water Association’s co-convenor for the Desalination and Membranes Special Interest Network, and VU representative for Water Quality Research Australia.

Professor Gray previously led the CSIRO Urban Water team, was part of the national science agency’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, and led the CSIRO Custer project on Advanced Membrane Technologies for Water Treatment.

He is also Editor of the new IWA journal, Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination, Associate Editor of Water Research, part of the editorial board for the Desalination journal, and has authored more than 100 scientific journal and conference publications, and over 100 internal and industry reports.

NCEDA projects

• Evaluation of non-chemical pulsed-power technology as an antifouling pre-treatment for reverse osmosis desalination membranes
• Reverse osmosis brine management by membrane distillation crystallisation
• Silica removal from groundwater for reverse osmosis water recovery enhancement and waste brine volume reduction (co-PI with Dr Peter Sanciolo)

Contact details

Dr Tanya King
Deakin University

Tanya King is an anthropologist interested in issues relating to natural resource management, the environment, gender, national identity, public policy and mythical sea creatures. Her PhD considered the Bass Strait shark fishery, and her current research concerns the cultural aspects of water management and infrastructure development, with a focus on issues of procedural justice.

Dr King has conducted quantitative and qualitative research in Australian rural and regional areas in relation to environmental policy implementation.  Her current research focuses on the social impact of the planning and implementation of the Wonthaggi (South Gippsland, Victoria) desalination plant, from which there has been multiple publications.  A Victorian survey of social attitudes to desalination and water policy reform is currently in the field.  Previously research involved over two years of intensive fieldwork in South Gippsland, which dealt directly with communication issues arising as a result of the implementation of environmental policy in the area and the perceptions of local stakeholders and national management personnel.  She continues to publish in the area of maritime anthropology, as well as more broadly in the fields of environmental anthropology and procedural justice, and has active ties with international leaders in these fields.  She has also researched, and published on, the uptake of agricultural policy in Victoria in relation to women farmers.  She has produced reports, refereed national and international journal publications, presented at national and international conferences and has been sought by the media to comment on matters of environmental policy, including social issues surrounding desalination.

NCEDA projects

• Public perception of, and response to, desalination in Australia

Contact details

Dr Pierre Le-Clech
The University of New South Wales

Dr Pierre Le-Clech from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) aims to meet a growing industry challenge – how to reuse and recycle reverse osmosis membranes which otherwise end up in landfill. Dr Le-Clech leads the NCEDA project to develop options for reuse of the desalination membranes which only have a typical three to four-year lifespan. He says finding solutions is a necessity for sustainable desalination in Australia. At present, no other option than landfill discharge is proposed to membrane users, and the current amount of waste generated will reach 200 tonnes this year and nearly 800 tonnes by 2015.

Dr Le-Clech, a Senior Lecturer in the UNSW School of Chemical Engineering, is collaborating with Victoria and Monash universities and industrial partners Dow Chemical Australia, Sydney Water, SA Water, the WA Water Corporation and SkyJuice Foundation. His team of joint investigators will research new options for sustainable disposal such as energy recovery, and recycling of reverse osmosis membranes as porous membranes.

Another NCEDA project Dr Le-Clech leads from UNSW’s UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology is optimising low pressure membrane pre-treatment for desalination. This work will characterise organic compounds present in feedwaters, enable better understanding of and optimal strategies for membrane fouling control and recommendations for sustainable operation and performance. UNSW is collaborating with Curtin University, Siemens, Veolia Water Australia and the WA Water Corporation.

Dr Le-Clech, who was awarded a two-year New South Global Fellowship in 2005, currently supervises ten research students, and serves as Associate Editor of the Desalination and Water Treatment journal. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Membrane Water Treatment.

Research interests

• Hybrid membrane processes for water and wastewater treatment
• Water reclamation and recycling
• Extrapolymer substances and biofilm
• Membrane autopsy

NCEDA projects

• Assisted forward osmosis for energy savings in RO desalination
• Optimising low-pressure membrane pretreatment for desalination
• Reuse of reverse osmosis membranes

Contact details

Dr Sophie Leterme
Flinders University

Dr Sophie Leterme is a Flinders University microbiologist studying the adapability of phytoplankton to changes in salinity as a result of coastal desalination operations. The South Australian lecturer in biological oceanography secured National Centre of Excellence in Desalination Australia funding for research at the Port Stanvac desalination plant to create a predictive model for species sustainability around plant intake and discharge (brine diffusers) pipes.

Phytoplankton or diatom communities in the sea and inland freshwater are often used for monitoring environmental conditions and water quality – in oceans they are vital for overall ecological health, contributing to nearly half of the sea’s total primary production. Dr Leterme’s research will determine if and how phytoplankton populations are affected by saline discharges from the SA desalination plant, and her findings should then be applicable for plant locations around Australia and throughout the world.

Dr Leterme is comparing seasonal adjustments in salinity in the immediate months before and then during desalination plant operations in the St Vincent Gulf. “The results should demonstrate that either there’s no changes in salinity and phytoplankton other than natural seasonal changes, or that salinity changes are due to brine discharge and species are either adapting to those levels or not coping,” Dr Leterme said.

“No changes would mean that brine discharge from desalination plants doesn’t impact phytoplankton communities and isn’t detrimental for the primary producers of the pelagic food chain – whereas the latter findings would mean we have to find strategies to reduce the impact of brine discharge on these important primary producers.

Dr Leterme has also received an ARC Discovery Grant focusing on the morphological flexibility of diatoms under environmental changes in the SA Coorong wetland. She leads a multi-disciplinary team of two research associates, a PhD student and two Honours students working on ecological aspects of the projects in the Coorong and at the desalination plant. Her team collaborates with Flinders Associate Professors Melissa Brown and Amanda Ellis for the molecular, metagenomic and nanostructure/chemistry parts of the research projects.

In addition to her position at Flinders University, Dr Leterme also works for the South Australian Research and Development Institute’s Aquatic Sciences Centre’s Oceanography program. She is co-developer, principal investigator and deputy node leader of the Southern Australian Integrated Marine Observing System which studies the coastal upwelling south of Kangaroo Island and its impact on the spatiotemporal
dynamic of the planktonic community.

Research interests

• Phytoplankton species dynamic in different ecosystems
• Nanostructure of diatoms frustules
• Hydroclimatic forcing from local to global scales
• Impact of raising salinity and temperature levels on phytoplankton community composition and dynamics

NCEDA projects

• Assessing the biofouling role of microbes in the desalination system; From the intake pipe to the reverse osmosis membranes
• Nanostructure of diatoms: A predictive model for species sustainability

Contact details

Professor Michael Monteiro
The University of Queensland

University of Queensland scientists are developing novel organic membranes with high selectivity, high water permeation rates with low energy requirements.

Leading the NCEDA-funded research to deliver the next generation in membrane technology is Professor Michael Monteiro, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow based at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the Brisbane university.

Prof. Monteiro says that with the new methods developed by his team, these membranes have the potential to be made on industrial scales.

Prof. Monteiro has established an international reputation in the field of ‘living’ radical polymerisation to produce highly complex polymer architectures and nanostructures in water.

His recent collaborative work on using polymeric systems in biology is highly regarded internationally and he was appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of Macromolecules for three years – the top polymer journal – and welcomed as a plenary and invited speaker at many international conferences.

Prof. Monteiro has previously held positions at universities in Canada, the Netherlands and Sydney and been Principal Scientist at Sydney company Gradipore Ltd.

In the Netherlands, his research group was the first to develop polymer nanostructures with controlled size, morphology and block copolymer composition using the Australian invented RAFT technology, a significant step in its commercialisation success.

Other collaborative research discovered a self-regulation mechanism for copper-mediated living radical polymerisation, which led to the making of ultrahigh and ultrafast polymers using copper to catalyse the polymerization, contributing considerable commercial significance for application in high heat distortion temperature PVC materials and ultra-strong coatings.

Prof. Monteiro is inventor on seven patents including modified rubber polymer latex and dendritic molecules, has published over 140 peer reviewed publications and has over 4500 citations.

He has won nine national science, innovation travel and leadership awards, and received a Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship.

Professor Monteiro’s research has attracted ARC Discovery grants, ACR Linkage, ARC LIEF, NHMRC and Queensland state government funding in excess of $7 million and he is on the editorial board of the Journal of Polymer Science Part A Polymer Chemistry and The Open Macromolecules Journal.

His research into reducing heavy metals at minute levels for the purification of waterled to his invitation to the Australian Academy of Science High Flyers Think Tank – developing best practices and technologies for water management and sustainability. He has consulted widely across Europe, the US, Australia and India.

Research interests

• Next generation nanostructures
• Smart nanopolymer for drug delivery
• Nanopolymer composites with complex architectures prepared in water
• Mechanisms in living radical polymerisation
• Nanoparticles for photosensitiser delivery

NCEDA projects

• Highly productive and selective bio‐organic hybrid membrane water filters

Contact details

Professor S. (Vigi) Vigneswaran
University of Technology Sydney

Professor S. Vigneswaran of the University of Technology, Sydney, has outstanding achievements stretching over 25 years in developing innovative technologies in water treatment, wastewater management, water reuse and reclamation. He regularly receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and industry – in the past four years obtaining 10 ARC grants. Professor Vigneswaran works with US and European universities, international research institutes, the European Union and United Nations programs to solve water scarcity – creating treatment systems for alternative water sources such as stormwater harvesting – and to make desalination and pre-treatment more energy efficient.

In Australia he plays a major role at NCEDA in designing pre-treatment for desalination systems for small coastal towns in WA and inland areas of NSW and Victoria. His UTS research group is currently working on three Centre projects – membrane flocculation hybrid system as pre-treatment, membrane distillation and forward osmosis.

In recognition of his eminent contribution to water sciences, Professor Vigneswaran was inducted into the International Water Academy as a life member and (inaugural) fellow of the International Water Association for 2010. He won the Applied Research Honour Award in the 2010 International Water Association Asia Pacific Regional Project Innovation Awards for an environmentally friendly biofilter pre-treatment for reverse osmosis in seawater desalination. In 2008, he won the same award for his work in arsenic removal.

Professor Vigneswaran is Director of the Centre for Technologies for Water and Wastewater at UTS and Co-Chair of the IWA Specialist group on Membrane Technologies. An Associate Editor of several leading water journals, he has written and contributed to more than 350 publications including three books, and is currently working on an international membranes handbook. His expertise is frequently called upon by major industry and public sector organisations and he is Chairman of the MacArthur Water, and the Sydney Water Corporation’s Research and Development Program Management Committee.

Professor Vigneswaran has also been a Visiting Professor at universities and research institutions around the world to work with experts on filtration and membranes, and funded by UN programs and several governments to run international clean technology and environmental solutions workshops and symposiums.

Research interests

• Membrane technologies and hybrid systems for water reuse and desalination
• High rate solid liquid separation technologies for package water treatment systems
• Advanced oxidation, photocatalysis, biofiltration for persistent organic removal
• Optimising treatment systems and their operation

NCEDA projects

• Membrane adsorption bioreactor hybrid system as a pre-treatment to reverse osmosis desalination
• Membrane flocculation hybrid system as pre-treatment to brackish water reverse osmosis desalination system: Emphasis on chemical use reduction and recovery
• The optimisation and improvement of direct filtration pre-treatment to reduce both organic and bio-fouling of RO membranes
• Tjuntjunjarra remote inland indigenous community solar/waste energy groundwater desalination project (co-PI with Dr Trevor Pryor, Murdoch University)

Contact details

Professor Linda Zou
University of South Australia

Prof. Linda Zou and her team at University of South Australia are leading an NCEDA project to develop and evaluate the potential of using graphene nano sheets as novel electrode materials in capacitive deionisation (CDI). CDI is a promising alternative desalination technology that uses carbon electrodes to remove salt ions by electrosorption. It requires less energy to operate than traditional desalination methods and the electrodes are easily regenerated. Many kinds of carbon materials have been investigated as CDI electrodes, such as carbon aerogel, carbon cloth, carbon nanotubes and mesoporous carbons.

Prof. Zou received her PhD in chemistry from Monash University in 1998. Her main research contributions are in the field of novel nanomaterial synthesis and its application to solve real world problems in desalination and water purification. In desalination research, Prof. Zou has focused on applying nanotechnology to low energy alternative desalination methods. Her contribution to the development of novel carbon electrode materials in capacitive deionisation has achieved greatly improved electrode efficiency and has received international recognition. Her recent research work also involves developing novel antifouling membrane surfaces.

Prof. Zou has an outstanding track record in successful nationally competitive ARC grants. She is the principal supervisor of seven PhD students.

Research interests

• Low energy alternative desalination processes using electrosorptive carbon electrodes.
• Membrane filtration for fit for purpose water reuse/recycle
• Synthesize nano-structured materials for environmental applications, such as TiO2/porpous nanocomposites
• Desalination brine waste treatment
• Membrane surface modification for low orgnaic fouling
• Using combined advanced oxidation processes to treat the industrial effluent for water reuse.

NCEDA projects

• Developing highly conductive graphene electrodes for capacitive desalination
• Application of capacitive deionisation in inland brackish water desalination

Contact details