Fabrication, Application and Mathematical Modeling of a new Diamine/Trimesoyl Chloride Reverse Osmosis Composite Membrane for Copper Sulfate Desalination from Wastewaters

Abstract

Excessive amounts of copper ions in the water sources can be harmful to mammals and especially humans. In this study, a new RO composite membrane is fabricated via the interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction of trimesoyl chloride (TMC), piperazine (PZ) and 3,5-diaminobenzoicacid (DABA). The IP reaction was conducted on a polysulfone (PS) layer which acts as a mounting layer for the separation TMC-DABA-PZ layer. The IP reaction time, TMC concentration and transmembrane pressure were the selected study variables. For IP reaction times around 10 s the rejection and flux were equal to 79% and 21.3 L.m−2.h−1, respectively, while increasing the IP reaction time to 40 s elevates the rejection and flux to 92% and 27.7 L.m−2.h−1, respectively. TMC concentrations around 0.05% w/w demonstrated rejection and flux equal to 88% and 14.3 L.m−2.h−1, respectively, while its elevation to 0.2% w/w, increased the rejection and flux to 90% and 17.5 L.m−2.h−1, respectively. As with the transmembrane pressure, the optimum pressure was 20 bars, in which the rejection and flux were 95% and 24.07 L.m−2.h−1, respectively. Membrane morphology tests are also supporting evidence for these results. The mathematical modeling has also shown that the relation between the concentration, rejection and flux parameters match the resultant data from the conducted experiments. Since both the rejection and the flux of the fabricated membranes have shown great results, such membranes can be used for wastewater treatment at industrial scales.