• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.191-199
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• 2022

In industrial production, the development of traditional polyamide nanofiltration (NF) membrane was limited due to its poor oxidation resistance, complex preparation process and high cost. In this study, a composite NF membrane with high flux, high separation performance, high oxidation resistance and simple process preparation was prepared by the method of dilute solution dip coating. And the sulfonated polysulfone was used for dip coating. The results indicated that the concentration of glycerin, the pore size of the based membrane, the composition of the coating solution, and the post-treatment process had important effects on the structure and performance of the composite NF membrane. The composite NF membrane prepared without glycerol protecting based membrane had a low flux, when the concentration of glycerin increased from 5% to 15%, the pure water flux of the composite NF membrane increased from 46.4 LMH to 108.2 LMH, and the salt rejection rate did not change much. By optimizing the coating system, the rejection rate of Na₂SO₄ and PEG1000 was higher than 90%, the pure water flux was higher than 40 LMH (60psi), and it can withstand 20,000 ppm.h NaClO solution cleaning. When the post treatment processes was adjusted, the salt rejection rate of NaCl solution (250 ppm) reached 45.5%, and the flux reached 62.2 LMH.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.106-114
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• 2006

This study is concerned with preparation of chlorine resistant (CR) thin layer composite (TFC) membranes. The novel method for making CR membranes from commercially available RO membranes is based on sol-gel condensation of trialkoxyalkylsilane derivatives. The silane coupling agents used in this study have different number of alkyl carbon chain group (methyltriethoxysilane; METES and octyltriethoxysilane; OCTES). The OCTES composite membranes have a significant tolerance to chlorine compared to commercial polyamide RO membrane or METES composite membranes. The surface properties of membranes were examined to explain a significant difference of chlorine tolerance between OCTES composite membrane and the other two membranes. In this study, we tried several surface analyses to explain difference of chlorine tolerance. The element composition results of surface analysis by EDX confirmed that both silane fixed on polyamide firmly, The surface roughness and contact angle results showed long chain alkyl group of OCTES enhancing hydrophobicity considerably than METES. The hydrophobicity plays an important role in chlorine resistance of membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.351-364
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• 2016

In recent decades, many researchers have tried to improve desalination performances of polyamide (PA) thin-film composite membranes (TFCs) by incorporating nanomaterials into a selective PA layer. This review focuses on PA-based nanocomposite membranes with high performances for energy-effective desalination in reverse osmosis. Carbon based nanomaterial (e.g., graphene oxide (GO), carbon nanotubes (CNT)) and/or other nanoparticles (e.g., zeolite, silica and etc.,) were applied to overcome the trade-off correlation between water permeability and salt rejection of current polymeric desalination membranes. Here, this brief review will discuss current studies of PA-based nanocomposite membranes with enhanced separation characteristics and provide the future research direction to achieve further improved desalination performances.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.451-460
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• 2019

Thin film composite membranes incorporated with nano-sized hydrophilic zeolite -A were successfully prepared via interfacial polymerization (IP) on porous blend PES/PAN support for water desalination. The thin film nanocomposite membranes were characterized by SEM, contact angle and performance test with 7000 ppm NaCl solution at 7bar. The results showed that the optimum zeolite loading amount was determined to be 0.1wt% with permeate flux 29LMH.NaCl rejection was improved from 69% to 92% compared to the pristine polyamide membrane where the modified PA surface was more selective than that of the pristine PA. In addition, there was no significant change in the permeate flux of the thin film nanocomposite membrane compared with that of the pristine PA in spite of the formation of the dense polyamide layer. The stability of the polyamide layer was investigated for 15 days and the optimized membrane presented the highest durability and stability.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.478-485
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• 2012

Polymers are widely used as membrane material for performing the separation of various gaseous mixtures due to their attractive permselective properties and high processability. The separation characteristics of $CH_4$ and $CO_2$ mixed gas using polyamide composite membrane has been studied in this work. The sample gas was prepared by mixing pure methane and carbon dioxide. Permeation tests were carried out at different operation conditions. Feed flow rates were varied between 800~1000 $cm^3/min$, and the stage cuts were varied between 50~60%. The gas inlet pressure and the temperature were varied as 6 bar and $30{\sim}70^{\circ}C$, respectively. The effects of the above mentioned parameters were investigated to estimate the permeability of $CH_4$ and $CO_2$, and the selectivity of $CO_2$ was also calculated for all conditions. The Arrhenius plots were also performed to obtaine the activation energies of $CH_4$ and $CO_2$ permeabilities.

• Clean Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.360-365
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• 2012

With rapid increase in municipal solid waste (MSW) due to the rising economy, solid waste gasification emerges as one of the promising technologies. Separation of the carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen ($H_2$) from syngas obtained by gasification of MSW was studied using the polyamide composite membrane. The separation characteristics of the CO and $H_2$ were studied at different gas flow rates and stage cuts. The permeability of CO and $H_2$ along with the selectivity of $H_2$ with respect to CO was obtained. Furthermore, the Arrhenius plots were obtained to estimate the activation energies of CO and $H_2$ permeabilites.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.506-510
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• 2017

The interfacial polymerization method has been applied to various fields as a reaction in which reactive monomers dissolved in two immiscible solutions cause polymerization at the interface. In the case of water treatment membranes, m-phenylene diamine and trimesoyl chloride are used as reactants. The performance of the membrane is affected by various polymerization factors. In this study, we investigated how the spreading rate of the organic solution influences the surface and structure of the membrane. Spreading rate of organic solutions was adjusted to 7.6 and 25 mm/sec. The solution volume of the organic phase was adjusted to 1~3 drops. The observed results showed that cracks were not found in the polyamide membrane when dropping at a drop of 7.6 mm/sec and dropping two drops at 25 mm/sec. On the other hand, cracks occurred in all cases. Therefore, the spreading rate of the initial organic solvent is expected to greatly affect the performance of the polyamide membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2019

Poly(ether block amide) (PEBA) is one of the commercially important class of block copolymer very much suitable specifically for $CO_2$ separation. Gas separation membrane need to have good mechanical strength as well as high gas permeability. The crystalline polyamide (PA) block provides the mechanical strength while the rubbery polyether (PE) group being $CO_2$-philic facilitate $CO_2$ permeation though the membrane. Composition of thermoplastic and rubbery phase in the polymer are changed to fit into suitable gas separation application. Although PEBA has good permeability, the selectivity of the membrane can be enhanced by incorporating molecular sieve without affection much the gas permeability. Mixed matrix membrane (MMM), a class of composite membrane combine the advantage of polymer matrix with the inorganic fillers. However, there are some disadvantages based on the compatibility of the inorganic fillers and polymeric phase. This review covers both the advantage and limitations of PEBA block copolymer based composite membrane.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.05b
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• pp.82-85
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• 2004

Flux-enhancement mechanism of thin-film-composite (TFC) membranes for the reverse comosis (RO) process was newly explained by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) that has been found to be applied for detecting molecular vacancies or pores having sizes that are equivalent to salt or hydrate ions in RO membrane.(omitted)

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.613-623
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• 2017

We report the novel thin film composite RO membrane modified by graphene oxide. The thin film composite RO membrane was exposed to 2000 mg/l sodium hypochloride; thereafter it was subjected to different graphene oxide concentration ranging from 50 mg/l to 1000 mg/l in water. The resultant membrane was crosslinked with 5000 mg/l N-hydroxysuccinimide. The performance of different membranes were analysed by solute rejection and water-flux measurement. It was found that 100 mg/l graphene oxide exposure followed by 5000 mg/l N-hydroxysuccinimide treatment resulted in the membrane with the highest solute rejection of 97.78% and water-flux of 4.64 Liter per sqm per hour per bar g. The membranes were characterized by contact angle for hydrophilicity, scanning electron micrographs for surface morphology, energy dispersive X-Ray for chemical composition of the surface, Atomic force microscope for surface roughness, ATR-FTIR for chemical structure identification. It was found that the graphene oxide modified membrane increases the salt rejection performance after exposure to high-fouling water containing albumin. Highly hydrophilic, antifouling surface formation with the nanomaterial led to the improved membrane performance. Moreover, the protocol of incorporating nanomaterial by this post-treatment is simple and can be applied to any RO membrane after it is manufactured.