Octadecyl‐silica—PVDF membrane of superior MD desalination performance

Abstract

ABSTRACTDespite its widespread industrial and residential uses for production of potable water, the reverse osmosis (RO) desalination process has some drawbacks by discharging harmful concentrated saline water as reject stream. A hydrophobic porous membrane can treat such environmentally unfriendly RO reject stream via Membrane Distillation (MD) process. Here, we describe preparation of superior polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) membrane modified with superhydrophobic silica nanoparticles for desalination application. Superhydrophobicity (contact angle of 151°) of silica nanoparticles of 7 nm sizes was achieved by reaction of the silica particles with octadecyltrichlorosilane in toluene to form SiOSi links with C18 alkyl chain. A homogeneous polymer dope mixture containing a desired amount of modified silica colloids suspended in toluene was used for the membrane preparation. The PVDF membrane with optimal silica content exhibited excellent flux with >99% salt rejection efficiency when used for MD at room temperature from the saline water feed of 3.5 wt % NaCl. The prepared hydrophobic PVDF membrane has the potential for MD application in treating the RO reject stream and other aqueous industrial effluents. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 46043.