Nambikkattu Jenny, Thomas Anoopa Ann, Kaleekkal Noel Jacob, Arumugham Thanigaivelan, Hasan Shadi W, Vigneswaran Saravanamuthu
Membrane Separation Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut (NITC), Kozhikode 673601, India.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi P.O. Box 127788, United Arab Emirates.
Membranes (Basel). 2023 Apr 29;13(5):486. doi: 10.3390/membranes13050486.
Thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes are the third-generation membranes being explored for nanofiltration applications. Incorporating nanofillers in the dense selective polyamide (PA) layer improves the permeability-selectivity trade-off. The mesoporous cellular foam composite Zn-PDA-MCF-5 was used as a hydrophilic filler in this study to prepare TFN membranes. Incorporating the nanomaterial onto the TFN-2 membrane resulted in a decrease in the water contact angle and suppression of the membrane surface roughness. The pure water permeability of 6.40 LMH bar at the optimal loading ratio of 0.25 wt.% obtained was higher than the TFN-0 (4.20 LMH bar). The optimal TFN-2 demonstrated a high rejection of small-sized organics (>95% rejection for 2,4-dichlorophenol over five cycles) and salts-NaSO (≈95%) > MgCl (≈88%) > NaCl (86%) through size sieving and Donnan exclusion mechanisms. Furthermore, the flux recovery ratio for TFN-2 increased from 78.9 to 94.2% when challenged with a model protein foulant (bovine serum albumin), indicating improved anti-fouling abilities. Overall, these findings provided a concrete step forward in fabricating TFN membranes that are highly suitable for wastewater treatment and desalination applications.
薄膜纳米复合（TFN）膜是正在探索用于纳滤应用的第三代膜。在致密的选择性聚酰胺（PA）层中加入纳米填料可改善渗透率与选择性之间的权衡。在本研究中，使用介孔蜂窝泡沫复合材料Zn-PDA-MCF-5作为亲水性填料来制备TFN膜。将该纳米材料掺入TFN-2膜中导致水接触角减小，并抑制了膜表面粗糙度。在0.25 wt.% 的最佳负载比下获得的6.40 LMH bar的纯水渗透率高于TFN-0（4.20 LMH bar）。最佳的TFN-2通过尺寸筛分和唐南排斥机制对小尺寸有机物表现出高截留率（在五个循环中对2,4-二氯苯酚的截留率>95%），对盐类的截留率为NaSO（≈95%）>MgCl（≈88%）>NaCl（86%）。此外，当用模型蛋白质污染物（牛血清白蛋白）进行挑战时，TFN-2的通量恢复率从78.9%提高到94.2%，表明抗污染能力得到改善。总体而言，这些发现为制造非常适合废水处理和海水淡化应用的TFN膜向前迈出了坚实的一步。
