TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring and Exploiting the Effect of Solvent Treatment in Membrane Separations
AU - Razali, Mayamin
AU - Didaskalou, Christos
AU - Kim, Jeong F.
AU - Babaei, Masoud
AU - Drioli, Enrico
AU - Lee, Young Moo
AU - Szekely, Gyorgy
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful for Jozsef Kupai from the Technical University of Budapest for his assistance with the NMR and TGA-GCMS analysis. Further thanks go to Raphael de Souza Rodrigues from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro for his help with the solvent treatment study. Useful discussions and analytical insights provided by Peter Pogany from Gedeon Richter Plc are greatly acknowledged. We are thankful for the information and in-kind support provided by SMR Maju Resources for the pharmaceutical case study. This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [BioProNET BIV Nov15 Szekely]; the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BioProNET BIV Nov15 Szekely]; and the Nano-Material Technology Development Program - National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology [Grant 2012M3A7B4049745].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2017/3/29
Y1 - 2017/3/29
N2 - It is well-known that solvent treatment and preconditioning play an important role in rejection and flux performance of membranes due to solvent-induced swelling and solvent adsorption. Investigations into the effect of solvent treatment are scarce and application specific, and were limited to a few solvents only. This study reveals the trend in solvent treatment based on solvent polarity in a systematic investigation with the aim to harness such effect for intensification of membrane processes. Nine solvents with polarity indices ranging from 0.1 to 5.8 (hexane to acetonitrile) were used as treatment and process solvents on commercial Borsig GMT-oNF-2, Evonik Duramem 300, and emerging tailor-made polybenzimidazole membranes. TGA-GCMS, HS-GC-FID, and NMR techniques were employed to better understand the effect of solvent treatment on the polymer matrix of membranes. In this work, apart from the solvent treatment's direct effect on the membrane performance, a subsequent indirect effect on the ultimate separation process was observed. Consequently, a pharmaceutical case study employing chlorhexidine disinfectant and antiseptic was used to demonstrate the effect of solvent treatment on the nanofiltration-based purification. It is shown that treatment of polybenzimidazole membranes with acetone resulted in a 25% increase in product recovery at 99% impurity removal. The cost of the process intensification is negligible in terms of solvent consumption, mass intensity, and processing time.
AB - It is well-known that solvent treatment and preconditioning play an important role in rejection and flux performance of membranes due to solvent-induced swelling and solvent adsorption. Investigations into the effect of solvent treatment are scarce and application specific, and were limited to a few solvents only. This study reveals the trend in solvent treatment based on solvent polarity in a systematic investigation with the aim to harness such effect for intensification of membrane processes. Nine solvents with polarity indices ranging from 0.1 to 5.8 (hexane to acetonitrile) were used as treatment and process solvents on commercial Borsig GMT-oNF-2, Evonik Duramem 300, and emerging tailor-made polybenzimidazole membranes. TGA-GCMS, HS-GC-FID, and NMR techniques were employed to better understand the effect of solvent treatment on the polymer matrix of membranes. In this work, apart from the solvent treatment's direct effect on the membrane performance, a subsequent indirect effect on the ultimate separation process was observed. Consequently, a pharmaceutical case study employing chlorhexidine disinfectant and antiseptic was used to demonstrate the effect of solvent treatment on the nanofiltration-based purification. It is shown that treatment of polybenzimidazole membranes with acetone resulted in a 25% increase in product recovery at 99% impurity removal. The cost of the process intensification is negligible in terms of solvent consumption, mass intensity, and processing time.
KW - membrane conditioning
KW - membrane preconditioning
KW - nanofiltration
KW - pharmaceuticals
KW - process intensification
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85016579015&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsami.7b01879
DO - 10.1021/acsami.7b01879
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85016579015
SN - 1944-8244
VL - 9
SP - 11279
EP - 11289
JO - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
JF - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
IS - 12
ER -