In this paper, a hydrophilic SiO 2 /hydrolyzed polyacylonitrile (HPAN)/polyethersulphone (PES) hybrid membrane was fabricated by blending PES with a series of SiO 2 /HPAN nanoparticles, which were prepared by hydrolyzing PAN and ethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) synchronously. During the phase inversion processing to fabricate the membrane, SiO 2 /HPAN would blend into the matrix and anchor on the surface of the membrane. By tuning the hydrolyzing time of the HPAN/SiO 2 and the content of HPAN/SiO 2, water flux and antifouling properties of the SiO 2 / HPAN/PES hybrid membrane improved significantly in the ultrafiltration process. The experiment demonstrated that, when blending with 10% content of SiO 2 /HPAN-1.5h, the SiO 2 /HPAN/PES hybrid membrane could achieve optimal performance: the water contact angle decreased to 42.08°, the water flux increased to 354 L/m 2 h, the bovine serum albumin (BSA) flux increased to 144 L/m 2 h, and the BSA rejection increased to 94.2%. Besides, the water flux remained at 250 L/m 2 h after fouling with BSA solution, which was higher than that of the neat membrane. Interestingly, the experiment also found that the SiO 2 /HPAN/PES hybrid membrane remained the high performance at high temperature, and the BSA and oil flux even enhanced when the temperature increased from room temperature to 80 °C. It exhibited that the separation performance of the membrane enhanced greatly with anchoring SiO 2 / HPAN nanoparticles.
Polyamide aromatic (PA) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes are currently the most important materials in the seawater desalination and wastewater treatment industry. This study used hydrophilic macromolecular polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in a PA selective layer to develop a new polyamide thin-film composite (TFC), namely PA-g-PVP RO, which will be used for water treatment. The TFC is prepared via an interfacial polymerisation process, and TFC-based PVP can be transplanted on a PA surface by radiation. PA-g-PVP RO was characterised by ATR-FTIR, SEM, XPS, AFM and contact angle test and then evaluated by determining its permeability, salt retention and antifouling performance, among other properties. Resultsshow that the chemical composition and surface morphology of the polyamide film significantly changed. A PVP brush grafted on an RO membrane surface significantly enhanced the hydrophilicity and antifouling performance of the membrane. When the PVP concentration was increased in an aqueous solution to 2%, the water contact angle of the sacrificial layer of the modified membrane decreased to 24.3 , the fouling recovery ratio to 93.4% and the salt retention increased to 99.5% at a small flux change. This combined technology can also be used for other macromolecules to modify the membrane and study the preparation and modification of ultra-filtration and nano-filtration membranes. Fig. 9 (a) Filtration performance (water fluxs and salt rejections) and (b) separation layer structure (surface roughness and thickness) of the composite membranes by varying the PVP concentration while keeping the irradiation dose (20 kGy) constant.This journal is
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