TY - JOUR
T1 - Defect-free highly selective polyamide thin-film composite membranes for desalination and boron removal
AU - Ali, Zain
AU - Al Sunbul, Yasmeen
AU - Pacheco Oreamuno, Federico
AU - Ogieglo, Wojciech
AU - Wang, Yingge
AU - Genduso, Giuseppe
AU - Pinnau, Ingo
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): BAS/1/1323-01-01
Acknowledgements: The research reported in this publication was supported by funding (BAS/1/1323-01-01) from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). We would like to thank Emilie Dauzon for contribution to artwork.
PY - 2019/2/16
Y1 - 2019/2/16
N2 - Removal of boron from saline water sources has presented a major challenge for commercially available reverse osmosis desalination membranes. In this work, we report the boron and sodium chloride separation properties of truly defect-free, highly selective, interfacially polymerized aromatic polyamide thin-film composite membranes. The fabricated membranes show potential for separating sodium chloride with a maximum rejection of 99.6% obtained for the optimized film-forming protocol under lab-scale brackish water desalination conditions. This translated into promising boron rejection performance with rejections of up to 99% at pH 10, higher than a number of commercially available reverse osmosis membranes tested in-house. Comprehensive characterization including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, ellipsometry, and surface charge measurements revealed intimate insights on interfacially polymerized polyamide membrane structure-property relationships. Increased membrane crosslinking was shown to be the primary determining factor for membrane permselectivity performance. Furthermore, relationships were established between microstructural properties such as crosslinking and morphological characteristics like surface roughness, highlighting an intricate and complex structure formation mechanism.
AB - Removal of boron from saline water sources has presented a major challenge for commercially available reverse osmosis desalination membranes. In this work, we report the boron and sodium chloride separation properties of truly defect-free, highly selective, interfacially polymerized aromatic polyamide thin-film composite membranes. The fabricated membranes show potential for separating sodium chloride with a maximum rejection of 99.6% obtained for the optimized film-forming protocol under lab-scale brackish water desalination conditions. This translated into promising boron rejection performance with rejections of up to 99% at pH 10, higher than a number of commercially available reverse osmosis membranes tested in-house. Comprehensive characterization including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, ellipsometry, and surface charge measurements revealed intimate insights on interfacially polymerized polyamide membrane structure-property relationships. Increased membrane crosslinking was shown to be the primary determining factor for membrane permselectivity performance. Furthermore, relationships were established between microstructural properties such as crosslinking and morphological characteristics like surface roughness, highlighting an intricate and complex structure formation mechanism.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/631107
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376738818328308
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061804981&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.memsci.2019.02.032
DO - 10.1016/j.memsci.2019.02.032
M3 - Article
SN - 0376-7388
VL - 578
SP - 85
EP - 94
JO - Journal of Membrane Science
JF - Journal of Membrane Science
ER -