Saud Asif, Saleem Haleema, Khan Aquib Wakeel, Munira Nazmin, Khan Maryam, Zaidi Syed Javaid
Center for Advanced Material, Qatar University, Doha 2713, Qatar.
Membranes (Basel). 2023 May 13;13(5):513. doi: 10.3390/membranes13050513.
Worldwide water shortage and significant issues related to treatment of wastewater streams, mainly the water obtained during the recovery of oil and gas operations called produced water (PW), has enabled forward osmosis (FO) to progress and become advanced enough to effectively treat as well as retrieve water in order to be productively reused. Because of their exceptional permeability qualities, thin-film composite (TFC) membranes have gained increasing interest for use in FO separation processes. This research focused on developing a high water flux and less oil flux TFC membrane by incorporating sustainably developed cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) onto the polyamide (PA) layer of the TFC membrane. CNCs are prepared from date palm leaves and different characterization studies verified the definite formations of CNCs and the effective integration of CNCs in the PA layer. From the FO experiments, it was confirmed that that the membrane with 0.05 wt% of CNCs in the TFC membrane (TFN-5) showed better FO performance in PW treatment. Pristine TFC and TFN-5 membrane exhibited 96.2% and 99.0% of salt rejection and 90.5% and 97.45% of oil rejection. Further, TFC and TFN-5 demonstrated 0.46 and 1.61 LMHB pure water permeability and 0.41 and 1.42 LHM salt permeability, respectively. Thus, the developed membrane can help in overcoming the current challenges associated with TFC FO membranes for PW treatment processes.
全球水资源短缺以及与废水处理相关的重大问题，主要是在石油和天然气开采作业（即采出水，PW）回收过程中获得的水，使得正向渗透（FO）技术得以发展并日趋成熟，足以有效地处理和回收水以便进行高效再利用。由于其卓越的渗透性能，复合薄膜（TFC）膜在FO分离过程中的应用越来越受到关注。本研究致力于通过将可持续开发的纤维素纳米晶体（CNC）掺入TFC膜的聚酰胺（PA）层来开发一种高水通量、低油通量的TFC膜。CNC由枣椰树叶制备而成，不同的表征研究证实了CNC的明确形成以及CNC在PA层中的有效整合。通过FO实验证实，TFC膜中含有0.05 wt% CNC的膜（TFN - 5）在处理采出水时表现出更好的FO性能。原始TFC膜和TFN - 5膜的脱盐率分别为96.2%和99.0%，除油率分别为90.5%和97.45%。此外，TFC膜和TFN - 5膜的纯水渗透率分别为0.46和1.61 LMHB，盐渗透率分别为0.41和1.42 LHM。因此，所开发的膜有助于克服当前与用于采出水处理过程的TFC FO膜相关的挑战。
