Membrane fouling remains a major obstacle to ultrafiltration. Due to their effectiveness and minimal energy demand, membranes have been extensively employed in water treatment. To improve the antifouling property of the PVDF membrane, a composite ultrafiltration membrane was created employing the in-situ embedment approach throughout the phase inversion process and utilizing a new 2D material, MAX phase Ti3ALC2. The membranes were described using FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), EDS (energy dispersive spectroscopy), CA (water contact angle), and porosity measurements. Additionally, atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were employed. Standard flux and rejection tests were applied to study the produced membranes’ performance. Adding Ti3ALC2 reduced composite membranes’ surface roughness and hydrophobicity compared to the pristine membrane. Porosity and membrane pore size increased with the addition up to 0.3% w/v, which decreased as the additive percentage increased. The mixed matric membrane with 0.7% w/v of Ti3ALC2 (M7) had the lowest CA. The alteration in the membranes’ properties reflected well on their performance. The membrane with the highest porosity (0.1% w/v of Ti3ALC2, M1) achieved the highest pure water and protein solution fluxes of 182.5 and 148.7. The most hydrophilic membrane (M7) recorded the highest protein rejection and flux recovery ratio of 90.6, which was much higher than that of the pristine membrane, 26.2. MAX phase Ti3ALC2 is a potential material for antifouling membrane modification because of its protein permeability, improved water permeability, and outstanding antifouling characteristics.
The contact angle is very important parameter in improving the self-cleaning property as well as in increasing the wear resistance of engineering surfaces in addition to improving the thermal transfer properties of materials in general. In this study, titanium dioxide nanoparticles were added to the epoxy resin and sprayed on a substrate of the brass tube used in heat exchangers for the purpose of studying its effect on the angle of contact of the substrate where different proportions of the nanomaterial were added to the epoxy resin in (1%, 3%, 5%, and 7%)wt. The results showed that the contact angle increased with increasing the rate of titanium dioxide nanoparticles.
Polyvinyl-chloride (PVC) was dehydrochlorinated by alkaline-solution (NaOH) in determining molarity (3.0 M) followed by grafting with acrylamide (AM) monomer onto dehydrochlorinated PVC (DHPVC) backbone by free-radical graft copolymerization to produce new grafted polymer referred as graft 3M. Then investigated the effect of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) addition on the grafted polymer. Membranes from pure PVC, graft 3M, and graft 3M/ PVP were synthesis via a phase inversion method. The successful AM grafting onto PVC was confirmed by characterization of the membranes by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) analysis, porosity, pore size, and contact angle measurements. The new synthesis (graft 3M) and (graft 3M/ PVP) membranes show excellent hydrophilicity in compared to pure PVC membranes, confirmed by higher pure water flux (PWF). The graft 3M/ 3wt.% PVP membrane exhibited the highest pure water permeate flux was about 540 L/m2 h at 28 °C of feed temperature and 1bar of pressure, i.e. was improved by about 270 times compared to the unmodified PVC membrane and 2.35 times compared to the graft 3M membrane.
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