Abstract
Pervaporation offers unique advantages for desalination of hypersaline water using highly hydrophilic and selective membrane. Positively charged membrane is superior in repelling cations and preventing scaling through electrostatic repulsion. This study investigates the quaternization and crosslinking of block copolymer styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) membrane and explores the potential of quaternized membrane for pervaporation desalination. A one-step immersion process was proposed to easily adjust the physicochemical properties of membrane using trimethylamine (TMA) and N,N,N′,N′-tetramethyl-1,6-hexanediamine (TMHDA) for ammonium grafting and crosslinking. Compared to the quaternization with TMA or TMHDA alone, the combination of TMA and TMHDA produces a synergistic effect, improving crosslinking efficiency and facilitating the grafting reaction. This results in high ion exchange capacity (IEC) values and a transformation of microphase separation structure with more interconnected hydrophilic domains. An ultrahigh water permeability coefficient of 0.6 × 106–1.2 × 106 Barrer and highly intrinsic salt rejection were obtained in treating 3.5–20 wt% NaCl solution. The thin film composite QEBS/nylon membranes showed a superior water flux of 116.5 kg·m−2·h−1 and salt rejection of >99.99 % in desalinating 5 wt% NaCl solution at 85 °C. Additionally, the membrane exhibited excellent long-term performance stability and resistance to acid and alkali environment, showing great potential for desalination of hypersaline water.
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