New RO TFC Membranes by Interfacial Polymerization in n-Dodecane with Various co-Solvents.

Abdullah Al-Hobaib,Hasan Mousa,Mohammed Al-Suhybani,Mohammed Shaik,Khalid Al-Sheetan

doi:10.3390/membranes6020024

Abstract

The objective of this research is to prepare and characterize a new and highly efficient polyamide TFC RO membrane by interfacial polymerization in dodecane solvent mixed with co-solvents. Three co-solvents were tested namely; acetone, ethyl acetate, and diethyl ether of concentration of 0.5, 1, 2, 3, and 5 wt %. The modified membranes were characterized by SEM, EDX, AFM and contact angle techniques. The results showed that addition of co-solvent results in a decrease in the roughness, pore size and thickness of the produced membranes. However, as the concentration of the co-solvent increases the pore size of the membranes gets larger. Among the three co-solvents tested, acetone was found to result in membranes with the largest pore size and contact angle followed by diethyl ether then ethyl acetate. Measured contact angle increases as the concentration of the co-solvent increases reaching a constant value except for ethyl acetate where it was found to drop. Investigating flux and salt rejection by the formulated membranes showed that higher flux was attained when acetone was used as a co-solvent followed by diethyl ether then ethyl acetate. However, the highest salt rejection was achieved with diethyl ether.

Highlights

Membranes are widely used in many industrial applications such as desalination and water treatment [1,2,3,4]
Efficient polyamide TFC reverse osmosis osmosis (RO) membranes based on dodecane mixed with acetone, diethyl
Ethyl acetate as co-solvent were formulated and evaluated

Summary

Introduction

Membranes are widely used in many industrial applications such as desalination and water treatment [1,2,3,4]. Different types of membranes were developed for oil-water separation [5,6,7,8], industrial waste water treatment [9,10], organic matter removal from wastewater [11,12] and municipal waste water treatment [13,14,15,16]. A persistent problem associated with the application of membrane processes is membrane fouling defined as the reduction in the flux through the membrane due to the blocking of its pores or constriction due to the deposition of small particles [17,18] To minimize this problem researchers have worked on finding new ways to manufacture membranes in which fouling problem is minimized yet keeping high salt rejection. Some example of these techniques are those related to the incorporation of nanoparticles membrane formulation [19,20,21,22,23], the graft of nanoparticles during membraneduring formulation [19,20,21,22,23], the graft polymerization of polymerization ionic liquids with ionic liquids with nanoparticles [24], the addition of co-solvent during the manufacturing process nanoparticles [24], the addition of co-solvent during the manufacturing process [25], the fabrication [25], the fabrication conductive membranes based on[26], carbon nanostructures [26], the electrically conductiveelectrically membranes based on carbon nanostructures the preparation of permeable preparation of permeable zeolite membranes [27,28,29], the interfacial polymerization with zeolite membranes [27,28,29], the interfacial polymerization with natural material [29,30] and thenatural use of material [29,30]

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Methods

Conclusion