Strong improvement of reverse osmosis polyamide membrane performance by addition of ZIF-8 nanoparticles: Effect of particle size and dispersion in selective layer

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) addition into membranes is able to improve water flux without jeopardizing selectivity, which enhance the performance of reverse osmosis (RO) processes owing to its intrinsic physical and chemical properties, such as porosity structure and high compatibility with the polymer matrix. However, there were few studies about influences of nanoparticle size on MOFs-incorporated thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes. Here ZIF-8 particles with different average sizes (50, 150 and 400 nm) were synthesized and incorporated into organic monomer solution to fabricate TFN membranes for water desalination to investigate the membrane performance changed by nanomaterial size. Dispersion of ZIF-8 in selective layer during interfacial polymerization process was affected by particle size. The apparent morphology, roughness, and hydrophilicity of ZIF-8 modified TFN membranes were changed subsequently, which affected the water permeability, salt rejection and fouling resistance performance of the TFN membranes correspondingly. Our results showed that the TFN membrane comprising ZIF-8 with particle size of 50 nm had the best performance due to the highest dispersion in polyamide layer, revealing the importance of MOFs particle size in further investigation of MOFs-incorporated TFN membranes.