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201890 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.201890 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 190 pages Doctoral Dissertation Academic theses en Munni, Afsana Boyer, Treavor H Perreault, Francois Sinha, Shahnawaz Arizona State University Partial requirement for: Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2025 Field of study: Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering This dissertation investigates different surface modification and coating strategies to enhance the functionality of materials in water/wastewater treatments and brine management. Performance factors like biofouling control, scaling resistance, and reactivity depend on surface materials and their composite. However, even with the best selection of surface materials and preparation, achieving the highest performance can be difficult due to the inherent properties of materials. Enhancing smoothness, hydrophilicity, and electrostatic repulsion can effectively address challenges-such as biofouling, scaling, and resource recovery. To engineer the properties of these materials, they are often modified with functional materials such as silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and ion-sieve materials (ISMs) to improve their performance. This thesis is structured into four key studies. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on optimizing coating conditions and identifying key surface properties that influence AgNPs loading on materials, stainless steel (SS 444), titanium (Ti), and the thin film composite polyamide (TFC PA) membranes (SW 30, BW 30, NF 270, and AMI H). SS 444 showed higher AgNPs loading compared to Ti due to its greater hydrophilicity and surface free energy, while BW 30 showed the highest silver loading compared to other PA membranes due to its highest oxygen content. The purpose of the selection of these materials was to optimize the coating condition by identifying the key surface properties that influence AgNPs, which in turn can guide materials selection or modification to maximize the silver coating procedure on materials. Chapters 5 and 6 explore the integration of modified adsorbents with membrane distillation (MD) for simultaneous water and lithium (Li) recovery. The modified adsorbent adsorbs over 90% of Li from pure and complex salt mixtures, and the highest concentrated adsorbent-hydrogenated titanium oxide (HTO)-coated membranes are more effective for both Li and water recovery. The purpose of these studies was to evaluate the performance of adsorbents and explore the feasibility of the combination of lithium ion-sieve membrane (LIMs) with membrane distillation (MD) for water and Li recovery. Overall, this dissertation provides valuable insights into surface modification techniques for designing antimicrobial surfaces to control biofilm formation and improving lithium and water recovery as a sustainable brine management strategy. Environmental engineering Sustainability Adsorption and Desorption Lithium Ion-Sieve Materials Membrane distillation Polyamide Membrane and Metallic Materials Silver nanoparticles Surface Coating Analyzing Surface Properties and Coating Strategies to Enhance the Performance of Materials in Environmental Applications