The interaction of a particle and a polymer brush coating a permeable surface

Offner, Avshalom; Ramon, Guy Z.

doi:10.1017/jfm.2021.23

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…The dense brush hinders the penetration of nanoparticles within the brush and, in the case of the bottle brush, between the overlapping side-chain filaments ( 50 – 53 ). This further establishes a strong excluded volume effect, which might restrict the penetration of nanocrystals at certain brush densities and thicknesses, even under filtration conditions ( 54 ). In our case, the densely packed brush strands effectively excluded silica monomers and CaCO 3 and CaSO 4 micro-aggregates from the brush layer and prevented them from reaching the polyamide surface.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Pseudo-bottle-brush decorated thin-film composite desalination membranes with ultrahigh mineral scale resistance

Ziemann,

Coves,

Oren

et al. 2024

Sci. Adv.

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High water recovery is crucial to inland desalination but is impeded by mineral scaling of the membrane. This work presents a two-step modification approach for grafting high-density zwitterionic pseudo-bottle-brushes to polyamide reverse osmosis membranes to prevent scaling during high-recovery desalination of brackish water. Increasing brush density, induced by increasing reaction time, correlated with reduced scaling. High-density grafting eliminated gypsum scaling and almost completely prevented silica scaling during desalination of synthetic brackish water at a recovery ratio of 80%. Moreover, scaling was effectively mitigated during long-term desalination of real brackish water at a recovery ratio of 90% without pretreatment or antiscalants. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal the critical dependence of the membrane’s silica antiscaling ability on the degree to which the coating screens the membrane surface from readily forming silica aggregates. This finding highlights the importance of maximizing grafting density for optimal performance and advanced antiscaling properties to allow high-recovery desalination of complex salt solutions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Pseudo-bottle-brush decorated thin-film composite desalination membranes with ultrahigh mineral scale resistance

Ziemann,

Coves,

Oren

et al. 2024

Sci. Adv.

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“…Surface coating [ 11 ] and blending modification [ 12 ] of polymer membranes are physical methods. Grafting functional polymer onto the surface of a separation membrane is a chemical method [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Blending a polymer that contains special functional groups with membrane-forming polymers is an economical and efficient one-step modification method for modifying polymer membranes that has been widely used in industry due to its straightforward procedure and reasonable cost [ 16 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermo-Sensitive Microgel/Poly(ether sulfone) Composited Ultrafiltration Membranes

et al. 2023

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Thermo-sensitive microgels known as PMO-MGs were synthesized via surfactant free emulsion polymerization, with poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate (OEGMA475) and 2-(2-methoxyethoxy) ethyl methacrylate (MEO2MA) used as the monomers and N, N-methylene-bis-acrylamide used as the crosslinker. PMO-MGs are spherical in shape and have an average diameter of 323 ± 12 nm, as determined via transmission electron microscopy. PMO-MGs/poly (ether sulfone) (PES) composited ultrafiltration membranes were then successfully prepared via the non-solvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) method using a PMO-MG and PES mixed solution as the casting solution. The obtained membranes were systematically characterized via combined X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and contact angle goniometer techniques. It was found that the presence of PMO-MGs significantly improved the surface hydrophilicity and antifouling performance of the obtained membranes and the PMO-MGs mainly located on the channel surface of the membranes. At 20 °C, the pure water flux increased from 217.6 L·m−2·h−1 for pure PES membrane (M00) to 369.7 L·m−2·h−1 for PMO-MGs/PES composited membrane (M20) fabricated using the casting solution with 20-weight by percentage microgels. The incorporation of PMO-MGs also gave the composited membranes a thermo-sensitive character. When the temperature increased from 20 to 45 °C, the pure water flux of M20 membrane was enhanced from 369.7 to 618.7 L·m−2·h−1.

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