Natural & Built Environments Research Centre, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, 5095, Australia.
Institute of Advanced Technology and New Materials, City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications, Borg Elarab, Alexandria, Egypt.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 8;7(1):7490. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-07531-y.
A practical fabrication technique is presented to tackle the trade-off between the water flux and salt rejection of thin film composite (TFC) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes through controlled creation of a thinner active selective polyamide (PA) layer. The new thin film nano-composite (TFNC) RO membranes were synthesized with multifunctional poly tannic acid-functionalized graphene oxide nanosheets (pTA-f-GO) embedded in its PA thin active layer, which is produced through interfacial polymerization. The incorporation of pTA-f-GOL into the fabricated TFNC membranes resulted in a thinner PA layer with lower roughness and higher hydrophilicity compared to pristine membrane. These properties enhanced both the membrane water flux (improved by 40%) and salt rejection (increased by 8%) of the TFNC membrane. Furthermore, the incorporation of biocidal pTA-f-GO nanosheets into the PA active layer contributed to improving the antibacterial properties by 80%, compared to pristine membrane. The fabrication of the pTA-f-GO nanosheets embedded in the PA layer presented in this study is a very practical, scalable and generic process that can potentially be applied in different types of separation membranes resulting in less energy consumption, increased cost-efficiency and improved performance.
提出了一种实用的制备技术，通过控制形成更薄的活性选择聚酰胺（PA）层来解决薄膜复合（TFC）反渗透（RO）膜的水通量和盐排斥之间的权衡问题。通过界面聚合，在其 PA 薄活性层中嵌入多功能聚单宁酸功能化氧化石墨烯纳米片（pTA-f-GO），合成了新型薄膜纳米复合（TFNC）RO 膜。与原始膜相比，将 pTA-f-GOL 掺入所制备的 TFNC 膜中导致 PA 层更薄、粗糙度更低、亲水性更高。这些特性提高了 TFNC 膜的水通量（提高了 40%）和盐排斥率（提高了 8%）。此外，将杀菌性 pTA-f-GO 纳米片掺入 PA 活性层有助于将抗菌性能提高 80%，与原始膜相比。本研究中提出的在 PA 层中嵌入 pTA-f-GO 纳米片的制备方法非常实用、可扩展且通用，可应用于不同类型的分离膜，从而降低能耗、提高成本效益和改善性能。
