PVA/TEOS crosslinked membranes incorporating zinc oxide nanoparticles and sodium alginate to improve reverse osmosis performance for desalination

Abstract

ABSTRACTPure water is becoming less available with increases in world population, so seawater desalination is becoming more important. For efficient seawater desalination, this paper proposes a novel mixed matrix membrane (MMM) based on the deposition of a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofibrous active layer on a 3‐triethoxysilylpropylamine‐functionalized cellulose acetate substrate. The active layer is fabricated by utilizing a tetraethyl orthosilicate–crosslinked PVA incorporating zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO‐NPs) and sodium alginate (NaAlg). The overall reverse osmosis performance of the MMMs is enhanced by the infusion of ZnO‐NPs and NaAlg in PVA; we find the optimum concentration for the best performance to be ZnO‐NPs at 0.1 wt % and NaAlg at 0.01 wt %. In terms of permeation flux, salt rejection, salt passage, stability, long‐term rejection, membrane antifouling, reusability, and chlorine resistance, the proposed MMMs are examined using a dead‐end reverse osmosis filtration setup. The results show that the active layer achieves an optimal permeation flux of 34.6 L/m2 h, a natural sea salt rejection of 97%, and a chlorine resistance of 93%, suggesting that the proposed MMMs can be useful for seawater desalination. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47559.