Potential for desalination using lower critical solution temperature polymers: Concentration of salt solutions by pluronic PE6200

Abstract

A commercially available lower critical solution temperature (LCST) polymer was demonstrated to preferentially adsorb water containing a reduced ion concentration, from CrCl 3 salt solutions and release some of this scavenged water at higher temperatures. The scavenging ability of the polymer was demonstrated to be dependent on the bulk salt concentration. The volume of water scavenged and the concentration of the remaining CrCl 3 solution increased linearly with the amount of LCST polymer (Pluronic PE 6200) used. Both the volume of water removed and the amount by which the remaining CrCl 3 solution was concentrated decreased with increasing CrCl 3 concentration. Implications for research into a novel method for sea water desalination are addressed. We also show water extraction from dilute sodium chloride and sea water, and that these results are consistent with the CrCl 3 model system.

Predictions of Thermo‐Mechanical Properties of Cross‐Linked Polyacrylamide Hydrogels Using Molecular Simulations

“…[1] The properties of these materials are conferred by a variety of mechanisms, spanning physical entanglement of polymer chains, electrostatic interactions, and covalent-bond cross-linking. [2] Owing to their unique characteristics of flexibility and biocompatibility, hydrogels are ideal for use in applications such as tissue engineering, [3,4] drug delivery, [5][6][7] desalination [8] and soft electronics, [9][10][11] and for technologies that include human-machine interfaces and soft robotics. [12,13] However, the full potential of hydrogel applications is often limited by their mechanical and thermal properties.…”

A Novel Approach for the Desalination of Seawater by Means of Reusable Poly(acrylic acid) Hydrogels and Mechanical Force

“…[19] Recently, temperature has been used as a stimulus to deswell a triblock copolymer of a poly(propylene oxide) block encased with poly(ethylene oxide) blocks (Pluronics 1 ) with LCST (lower critical solution temperature) to gain desalinated water at low yields, where typically only 0.5% of the salt solution could be desalinated. [20] Experimental Part…”

Experimental data and thermodynamic modeling of ternary aqueous biphasic systems of EO/PO polymers–Na2SO4–H2O

“…Liquid-liquid extraction (LLX) has been reported as a promising technology for water-salt separations [6][7][8], because it can possibly save energy by avoiding the energy intensive steps of water evaporation, and/or pressurizing large streams. However, in LLX processes, recovery is often done thermally, which would only be economic if the solute is extracted without significant co-extraction of water.…”