Drikvand Haniyeh Najafvand, Golgoli Mitra, Zargar Masoumeh, Ulbricht Mathias, Nejati Siamak, Mansourpanah Yaghoub
Membrane Research Laboratory, Lorestan University, Khorramabad 68151-44316, Iran.
School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia.
Polymers (Basel). 2022 Aug 18;14(16):3376. doi: 10.3390/polym14163376.
Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) was introduced into a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nonwoven fabric to develop novel support for polyamide (PA) thin-film composite (TFC) membranes without using a microporous support layer. First, temperature-responsive PNIPAAm hydrogel was prepared by reactive pore-filling to adjust the pore size of non-woven fabric, creating hydrophilic support. The developed PET-based support was then used to fabricate PA TFC membranes via interfacial polymerization. SEM-EDX and AFM results confirmed the successful fabrication of hydrogel-integrated non-woven fabric and PA TFC membranes. The newly developed PA TFC membrane demonstrated an average water permeability of 1 L/m h bar, and an NaCl rejection of 47.0% at a low operating pressure of 1 bar. The thermo-responsive property of the prepared membrane was studied by measuring the water contact angle (WCA) below and above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the PNIPAAm hydrogel. Results proved the thermo-responsive behavior of the prepared hydrogel-filled PET-supported PA TFC membrane and the ability to tune the membrane flux by changing the operating temperature was confirmed. Overall, this study provides a novel method to fabricate TFC membranes and helps to better understand the influence of the support layer on the separation performance of TFC membranes.
将聚（N-异丙基丙烯酰胺）（PNIPAAm）引入聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯（PET）无纺布中，以开发用于聚酰胺（PA）薄膜复合（TFC）膜的新型载体，而无需使用微孔支撑层。首先，通过反应性孔隙填充制备温度响应性PNIPAAm水凝胶，以调节无纺布的孔径，从而形成亲水性载体。然后，将所开发的基于PET的载体用于通过界面聚合制备PA TFC膜。扫描电子显微镜-能谱（SEM-EDX）和原子力显微镜（AFM）结果证实了水凝胶集成无纺布和PA TFC膜的成功制备。新开发的PA TFC膜在1 bar的低操作压力下表现出平均水渗透率为1 L/m·h·bar，NaCl截留率为47.0%。通过测量PNIPAAm水凝胶的低临界溶液温度（LCST）以下和以上的水接触角（WCA），研究了所制备膜的热响应特性。结果证明了所制备的水凝胶填充PET支撑PA TFC膜的热响应行为，并证实了通过改变操作温度来调节膜通量的能力。总体而言，本研究提供了一种制备TFC膜的新方法，并有助于更好地理解支撑层对TFC膜分离性能的影响。
