Tailoring surface charge and wetting property for robust oil-fouling mitigation in membrane distillation

Abstract

The efforts of developing anti-oil-fouling membranes have so far been focusing on tailoring membrane surface wetting properties, whereas the impacts of surface charge are often eclipsed. In this study, we investigated the impacts of surface charge and wetting property on oil fouling kinetics in membrane distillation (MD). Two composite membranes with in-air hydrophilic and underwater oleophobic surfaces, one of positive charge and the other of negative charge, were fabricated by modifying a hydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane with hydrophilic polyelectrolytes with different charges. The modified composite membranes were compared with the reference PVDF membrane for their contact angles, adhesion force curves, and fouling kinetics in MD processes. It was found that the negatively charged composite membrane performed the best in mitigating fouling by the negatively charged oil emulsion, followed by the positively charged composite membrane, with the pristine PVDF membrane being the most susceptible to oil fouling in MD experiments. The results from underwater oil CA measurements and oil probe force spectroscopy corroborated the results in the fouling experiments. The impact of surface charges on oil-membrane interaction and associated mechanism were also discussed.