Robust fabrication of thin film polyamide-TiO nanocomposite membranes with enhanced thermal stability and anti-biofouling propensity.

The development of nano-enabled composite materials has led to a paradigm shift in the manufacture of high-performance nanocomposite membranes with enhanced permeation, thermo-mechanical, and antibacterial properties. The major challenges to the successful incorporation of nanoparticles (NPs) to polymer films are the severe aggregation of the NPs and the weak compatibility of NPs with polymers. These two phenomena lead to the formation of non-selective voids at the interface of the polymer and NPs, which adversely affect the separation performance of the membrane. To overcome these challenges, we have developed a new method for the fabrication of robust TFN reverse osmosis membranes. This approach relies on the simultaneous synthesis and surface functionalization of TiO NPs in an organic solvent (heptane) via biphasic solvothermal reaction. The resulting stable suspension of the TiO NPs in heptane was then utilized in the interfacial (in-situ) polymerization reaction where the NPs were entrapped within the matrix of the polyamide (PA) membrane. TiO NPs of 10 nm were effectively incorporated into the thin PA layer and improved the thermal stability and anti-biofouling properties of the resulting TFN membranes. These features make our synthesized membranes potential candidates for applications where the treatment of high-temperature streams containing biomaterials is desirable.