Menachem Elimelech

About

Menachem Elimelech is the Nancy and Clint Carlson Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. His research focuses on the water-energy nexus, specifically membrane-based processes for energy-efficient desalination and wastewater reuse, advanced materials for environmental separation and water decontamination technologies, and environmental applications of nanomaterials. He has authored more than 560 refereed journal publications, including invited review articles in Science and Nature, and is a co-author of the book Particle Deposition and Aggregation (1995). Professor Elimelech is recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher and has received numerous awards for his contributions to environmental engineering and water research, including election to the United States National Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Engineering of Korea. He has advised 56 Ph.D. students and 56 postdoctoral researchers, many of whom hold leading positions in academia and industry. His educational background includes a B.S. and M.S. from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Chemical engineering
• Organic chemistry
• Engineering
• Environmental science
• Computer Science
• Process engineering
• Composite material

Selected publications

• Electrified water treatment: fundamentals and roles of electrode materials

  Nature Reviews Materials · 2023 · 263 citations

  DOI

• Selective membranes in water and wastewater treatment: Role of advanced materials

  Materials Today · 2021 · 241 citations

  DOI

• Toward Continuous, Oriented Covalent Organic Framework Membranes for Precise Molecular Separations

  ACS Nano · 2025-08-15 · 26 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The goal of achieving energy-efficient, precise molecular separations has motivated interest in developing and employing porous crystalline frameworks as membrane materials. Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are ordered crystalline matrices composed of covalently bonded organic monomers and are synthesized via reversible reticular chemistry. COFs possess high porosity, structural tunability, and chemical and thermal stability, making them ideally suited for emerging, high-value membrane separat…

  PublisherDOI

• Scalable catalytic nanofiltration membranes for advanced water treatment

  Nature Water · 2025-09-09 · 23 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Ultrahigh pressure compaction-resistant thin film crosslinked composite reverse osmosis membranes

  Nature Communications · 2025-09-01 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  In this study, we present a class of thin-film crosslinked (TFX) composite reverse osmosis (RO) membranes that resist physical compaction at ultrahigh pressures (up to 200 bar). Since RO membranes experience compaction at virtually all pressure ranges, the ability to resist compaction has widespread implications for RO membrane technology. The process described herein involves crosslinking a phase inverted porous polyimide (PI) support membrane followed by interfacial polymerization of a polyami…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Engineered Osmosis for Sustainable Production of Water and Energy: Development of High Performance Micromolded Membranes

  NSF · $370k · 2012–2015

• NSF-BSF: Selective Transport of Divalent Cations through Polymeric Membranes Using Host-Guest Chemistry

  NSF · $413k · 2021–2024

• Carbon Nanotubes in Soils: Transport, Filtration, and Impact on Soil Microbial Community

  NSF · $369k · 2008–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Joseph N. Ryan

  University of Colorado Boulder

  69 shared

• Xinglin Lu

  CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion

  53 shared

• Akshay Deshmukh

  Yale University

  51 shared

• Chanhee Boo

  47 shared

• Sohum K. Patel

  Yale University

  39 shared

• Long D. Nghiem

  39 shared

• Ronald W. Harvey

  United States Geological Survey

  38 shared

• Nathalie Tufenkji

  McGill University

  36 shared

Education

• PhD

  Johns Hopkins University

  1989

Awards & honors

• Eni Prize for Protection of the Environment (2015)
• Election to the United States National Academy of Engineerin…
• Chinese Academy of Engineering (2017)
• Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (2021)
• Canadian Academy of Engineering (2022)

Similar researchers at Rice University

• Pulickel Ajayanh-204
• Pedro Alvarezh-117
• Frederick C. MacKintoshh-94