Kadhom Mohammed, Hu Weiming, Deng Baolin
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
Al-Dour Technical Institute, Northern Technical University, Al-Dour, Saladin, Iraq.
Membranes (Basel). 2017 Jun 14;7(2):31. doi: 10.3390/membranes7020031.
Knowing that the world is facing a shortage of fresh water, desalination, in its different forms including reverse osmosis, represents a practical approach to produce potable water from a saline source. In this report, two kinds of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) nanoparticles (NPs), UiO-66 (100 nm) and MIL-125 (100 nm), were embedded separately into thin-film composite membranes in different weight ratios, 0%, 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.15%, 0.2%, and 0.3%. The membranes were synthesized by the interfacial polymerization (IP) of -phenylenediamine (MPD) in aqueous solution and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in an organic phase. The as-prepared membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), contact angle measurement, attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectroscopy, and salt rejection and water flux assessments. Results showed that both UiO-66 and MIL-125 could improve the membranes' performance and the impacts depended on the NPs loading. At the optimum NPs loadings, 0.15% for UiO-66 and 0.3% for MIL-125, the water flux increased from 62.5 L/m² h to 74.9 and 85.0 L/m² h, respectively. NaCl rejection was not significantly affected (UiO-66) or slightly improved (MIL-125) by embedding these NPs, always at >98.5% as tested at 2000 ppm salt concentration and 300 psi transmembrane pressure. The results from this study demonstrate that it is promising to apply MOFs NPs to enhance the TFC membrane performance for desalination.
鉴于世界正面临淡水短缺问题，包括反渗透在内的各种形式的海水淡化是一种从咸水源生产饮用水的实用方法。在本报告中，两种金属有机框架（MOF）纳米颗粒（NP），UiO-66（约100纳米）和MIL-125（约100纳米），分别以0%、0.05%、0.1%、0.15%、0.2%和0.3%的不同重量比嵌入到复合薄膜中。这些膜是通过在水相中对苯二胺（MPD）和在有机相中均苯三甲酰氯（TMC）的界面聚合（IP）合成的。通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）、透射电子显微镜（TEM）、接触角测量、衰减全反射傅里叶变换红外（ATR FT-IR）光谱以及脱盐率和水通量评估对所制备的膜进行了表征。结果表明，UiO-66和MIL-125都可以改善膜的性能，且影响取决于纳米颗粒的负载量。在最佳纳米颗粒负载量下，UiO-66为0.15%，MIL-125为0.3%，水通量分别从62.5 L/m² h增加到74.9和85.0 L/m² h。嵌入这些纳米颗粒对NaCl截留率没有显著影响（UiO-66）或略有改善（MIL-125），在2000 ppm盐浓度和300 psi跨膜压力下测试时，截留率始终>98.5%。本研究结果表明，应用MOF纳米颗粒来提高用于海水淡化的TFC膜性能具有前景。
