Tubular PAN/CNC thin film nanocomposite (TFN) pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) membrane: fabrication and preliminary evaluation in desalination process

Abstract

The aim of this work is to fabricate tubular nanocellulose-based nano ber pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) by electrospinning. The PRO process requires high performance, high ux, high rejection and resistant membranes under harsh conditions. Because conventional phase-inversion membranes are not su cient to perform the required water ux. Because of this reason, alternative membrane fabrication methods need to be develop. Recently, lots of studies are carried out to fabricate strong enough nano ber pressure retarded osmosis membranes which are resistant higher pressure pressure while providing high ux and high rejection rates. In this study, cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) added PAN nanocomposite nano ber PRO membranes successfully fabricated by tailor made electrospinning equipment. According to the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), FT-IR, Dynamic Mechanical Analysis, Porometer and Contact Angle analysis results, it is concluded that PAN and CNC provided a complete mixture and the addition of CNC increased the mechanical strength in the PAN membranes which is the crucial phenomena in PRO applications.In this study, the newly fabricated membrane achieves a higher PRO water ux of 405.38 LMH with using a 1 M NaCl and a DI as feed water. The corresponding salt ux is found as 2.10 gMH which is higher than our previous study (Pasaoglu et al., 2020). The selectivity of the reversed ux represented by the ratio of the water ow to the reversed salt ux (Jw/ Js) was able to be kept as high as 193.03 L/g for PRO operation.As far as we know, the performance of the work developed membrane in this study has shawn better performance than all PRO membranes reported in the literature previously.