Improving water flux and salt rejection by a tradeoff between hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity of sublayer in TFC FO membrane

2020 ◽  
Vol 162 ◽  
pp. 94-106
Author(s):  
Saina Akbari ◽  
Majid Peyravi
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (14) ◽  
pp. 3508-3516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weibin Liang ◽  
Lin Li ◽  
Jingwei Hou ◽  
Nicholas D. Shepherd ◽  
Thomas D. Bennett ◽  
...  

The composite membranes with defective metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) show a significant increase in water flux, without compromising the high salt rejection.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongqiang Zhang ◽  
Fujian Zhang ◽  
Zhen Liu ◽  
Guanggui Cheng ◽  
Xiaodong Wang ◽  
...  

In this study, the reverse osmosis (RO) of a salt solution was investigated using a molecular dynamics method to explore the performance of a multilayer porous graphene membrane. The effects of the salt solution concentration, pressure, layer separation and pore offset on the RO performance of the membrane were investigated and the influences of the number of layers and the gradient structure were determined. The results show that as the salt solution concentration increases, the energy barrier of the water molecules passing through the bilayer porous graphene membranes changes slightly, indicating that the effect of the water flux on the membrane can be ignored. The salt rejection performance of the membrane improves with an increase in the concentration of the salt solution. When the pressure is increased, the energy barrier decreases, the water flux increases and the salt rejection decreases. When the layer separation of the bilayer porous graphene membrane is the same as the equilibrium spacing of the graphene membrane, the energy barrier is the lowest and the membrane water flux is the largest. The energy barrier of the bilayer porous graphene membrane increases with increasing layer separation, resulting in a decrease in the water flux of the membrane. The salt rejection increases with increasing layer separation. The water flux of the membrane decreases as the energy barrier increases with increasing pore offset and the salt rejection increases. The energy barrier effect is more pronounced for a larger number of graphene layers and the water flux of the membrane decreases because it is more difficult for the water molecules to pass through the porous graphene membrane. However, the salt rejection performance improves with the increase in the number of layers. The gradient pore structure enhances the energy barrier effect of the water molecules permeating through the membrane and the water flux of the membrane decreases. The salt rejection performance is improved by the gradient pore structure. The research results provide theoretical guidance for research on the RO performance of porous graphene membranes and the design of porous graphene membranes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (3-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ngan T. B. Dang ◽  
Liza B. Patacsil ◽  
Aileen H. Orbecido ◽  
Ramon Christian P. Eusebio ◽  
Arnel B. Beltran

Water resources are very important to sustain life. However, these resources have been subjected to stress due to population growth, economic and industrial growth, pollution and climate change. With these, the recovery of water from sources such as wastewater, dirty water, floodwater and seawater is a sustainable alternative. The potential of recovering water from these sources could be done by utilizing forward osmosis, a membrane process that exploits the natural osmotic pressure gradient between solutions which requires low energy operation. This study evaluated the potential of forward osmosis (FO) composite membranes fabricated from bacterial cellulose (BC) and modified with sodium alginate. The membranes were evaluated for water flux and salt rejection. The effect of alginate concentrations and impregnation temperatures were evaluated using 0.6 M sodium chloride solution as feed and 2 M glucose solution as the draw solution. The membranes were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Contact Angle Meter (CAM). The use of sodium alginate in BC membrane showed a thicker membrane (38.3 μm to 67.6 μm), denser structure (shown in the SEM images), and more hydrophilic (contact angle ranges from 28.39° to 32.97°) compared to the pristine BC membrane (thickness = 12.8 μm and contact angle = 66.13°). Furthermore, the alginate modification lowered the water flux of the BC membrane from 9.283 L/m2-h (LMH) to value ranging from 2.314 to 4.797 LMH but the improvement in salt rejection was prominent (up to 98.57%).


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aulia Rahma ◽  
Muthia Elma ◽  
Mahmud Mahmud ◽  
Chairul Irawan ◽  
Amalia Enggar Pratiwi ◽  
...  

The high number of natural organic matter contain in wetland water may cause its water has brown color and not consumable. In other hand, intrusion of sea water through wetland aquifer create water become saline, notably on hot season. Coagulation is effective method to applied for removing of natural organic matter. However, it could not be used for salinity removal. Hence combination of coagulation and pervaporation process is attractive method to removing both of natural organic matter and conductivity of wetland saline water. The objective of this works is to investigate optimum coagulant doses for removing organic matter by coagulation process as pretreatment and to analysis performance of coagulation-pervaporation silica-pectin membrane for removing of organic matter and conductivity of wetland saline water. Coagulation process in this work carried out under varied aluminum sulfate dose 10-60 mg.L-1. Silica-pectin membrane was used for pervaporation process at feed temperature ~25 °C (room temperature). Optimum condition of pretreatment coagulation set as alum dose at 30 mg.L-1 with maximum removal efficiency 81,8 % (UV254) and 40 % (conductivity). In other hand, combining of coagulation-pervaporation silica-pectin membrane shows both of UV254 and salt rejection extremely good instead without pretreatment coagulation of 86,8 % and 99,9 % for UV254 and salt rejection respectively. Moreover, water flux of silica-pectin membrane pervaporation with coagulation pretreatment shown higher 17,7 % over water flux of wetland saline water without pretreatment coagulation. Combining of coagulation and pervaporation silica-pectin membrane is effective to removing both of organic matter and salinity of wetland saline water at room temperature.


Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 2526
Author(s):  
Wenyao Shao ◽  
Chenran Liu ◽  
Tong Yu ◽  
Ying Xiong ◽  
Zhuan Hong ◽  
...  

Using polyethylenimine (PEI) as the aqueous reactive monomers, a positively charged thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) nanofiltration (NF) membrane with enhanced performance was developed by successfully incorporating graphene oxide (GO) into the active layer. The effects of GO concentrations on the surface roughness, water contact angle, water flux, salt rejection, heavy metal removals, antifouling property, and chlorine resistance of the TFN membranes were evaluated in depth. The addition of 20 ppm GO facilitated the formation of thin, smooth, and hydrophilic nanocomposite active layers. Thus, the TFN-PEI-GO-20 membrane showed the optimal water flux of 70.3 L·m−2·h−1 without a loss of salt rejection, which was 36.8% higher than the thin-film composite (TFC) blank membrane. More importantly, owing to the positively charged surfaces, both the TFC-PEI-blank and TFN-PEI-GO membranes exhibited excellent rejections toward various heavy metal ions including Zn2+, Cd2+, Cu2+, Ni2+, and Pb2+. Additionally, compared with the negatively charged polypiperazine amide NF membrane, both the TFC-PEI-blank and TFN-PEI-GO-20 membranes demonstrated superior antifouling performance toward the cationic surfactants and basic protein due to their hydrophilic, smooth, and positively charged surface. Moreover, the TFN-PEI-GO membranes presented the improved chlorine resistances with the increasing GO concentration.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2841
Author(s):  
Lin Chen ◽  
Pei Xu ◽  
Huiyao Wang

High water flux and elevated rejection of salts and contaminants are two primary goals for membrane distillation (MD). It is imperative to study the factors affecting water flux and solute transport in MD, the fundamental mechanisms, and practical applications to improve system performance. In this review, we analyzed in-depth the effects of membrane characteristics (e.g., membrane pore size and distribution, porosity, tortuosity, membrane thickness, hydrophobicity, and liquid entry pressure), feed solution composition (e.g., salts, non-volatile and volatile organics, surfactants such as non-ionic and ionic types, trace organic compounds, natural organic matter, and viscosity), and operating conditions (e.g., temperature, flow velocity, and membrane degradation during long-term operation). Intrinsic interactions between the feed solution and the membrane due to hydrophobic interaction and/or electro-interaction (electro-repulsion and adsorption on membrane surface) were also discussed. The interplay among the factors was developed to qualitatively predict water flux and salt rejection considering feed solution, membrane properties, and operating conditions. This review provides a structured understanding of the intrinsic mechanisms of the factors affecting mass transport, heat transfer, and salt rejection in MD and the intra-relationship between these factors from a systematic perspective.


Membranes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zongyao Zhou ◽  
Xiang Li ◽  
Digambar B. Shinde ◽  
Guan Sheng ◽  
Dongwei Lu ◽  
...  

Enhancing the water flux while maintaining the high salt rejection of existing reverse osmosis membranes remains a considerable challenge. Herein, we report the use of a porous carbon nitride (C3N4) nanoparticle to potentially improve both the water flux and salt rejection of the state-of-the-art polyamide (PA) thin film composite (TFC) membranes. The organic–organic covalent bonds endowed C3N4 with great compatibility with the PA layer, which positively influenced the customization of interfacial polymerization (IP). Benefitting from the positive effects of C3N4, a more hydrophilic, more crumpled thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane with a larger surface area, and an increased cross-linking degree of PA layer was achieved. Moreover, the uniform porous structure of the C3N4 embedded in the ”ridge” sections of the PA layer potentially provided additional water channels. All these factors combined provided unprecedented performance for seawater desalination among all the PA-TFC membranes reported thus far. The water permeance of the optimized TFN membrane is 2.1-folds higher than that of the pristine PA-TFC membrane, while the NaCl rejection increased to 99.5% from 98.0%. Our method provided a promising way to improve the performance of the state-of-art PA-TFC membranes in seawater desalination.


2016 ◽  
Vol 74 (7) ◽  
pp. 1619-1625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fengjing Wu ◽  
Xiaojuan Liu ◽  
Chaktong Au

The polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were prepared through interfacial polymerization of m-phenylenediamine (MPD) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC). The use of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and glycerol as additives for the formation of thin-film composite (TFC) was investigated. We studied the effect of DMSO and glycerol addition on membrane property and RO performance. Microscopic morphology was examined by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The surface hydrophilicity was characterized on the basis of water contact angle and surface solid–liquid interfacial free energy (−ΔGSL). Water flux and salt rejection ability of the membranes prepared with or without the additives were evaluated by cross-flow RO tests. The results reveal that the addition of DMSO and glycerol strongly influences the property of the TFC RO membrane. Compared to the MPD/TMC membrane fabricated without DMSO and glycerol, the MPD/TMC/DMSO/glycerol membrane has a rougher surface and is more hydrophilic, showing smaller water contact angle and larger −ΔGSL value. Without decrease in salt rejection ability, the MPD/TMC/DMSO/glycerol membrane shows water flux significantly larger than that of the MPD/TMC membrane. The unique property of the MPD/TMC/DMSO/glycerol membrane is attributed to the cooperative effect of DMSO and glycerol on membrane structure during the interfacial polymerization process.


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