Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Chemistry department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt
2
Egypt Desalination Research Center of Excellence (EDRC), Hydrogeochemistry Department, Desert Research Center (DRC), Cairo, Egypt
3
Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt
4
Egypt Desalination Research Center of Excellence (EDRC), Hydrogeochemistry Department, Desert Research Center (DRC), Cairo, Egypt
Abstract
The present work investigates the influence of incorporating Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) into the substrate layer and modifying the composition of the thin film layer on the morphology and nanofiltration (NF) effectiveness of Polysulfone (PSF) NF membranes. To accomplish this goal, several thin film composite (TFC) membranes were produced and employed for the purpose of extracting salt from water via NF processing. A phase inversion (PI) technique was used to build the PSF supporting membranes by creating casting solutions including PSF polymer, Polyvinyl-pyrrolidone (PVP) as a pore generating agent, and N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) as a solvent. ZnO NPs were included into the casting solution at different weight ratios. The synthesis of polyamide (PA) thin films was achieved through interfacial polymerization (IP) between Piperazine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) on the PSF substratums. The work investigated the synthesis parameters for the PA thin layer by studying the effects of immersion durations and monomer concentrations of the aqueous and organic solutions. A subsequent analysis of the TFC NF membranes was conducted using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX)-Mapping Spectroscopy and contact angle metrics. The inclusion of ZnO nanoparticles into the PSF membrane matrix has improved the structure, water-attracting characteristics, and flow rate of the membrane films. The study examined the influence of various operational conditions, comprising the operating pressure (ranging from 5 to 20 bar), feed concentration (extending from 2600 to 11460 ppm), and the kind of salt in the feed solution (Na2SO4, MgCl2, CaSO4, NaCl). The permeate flux of a Na2SO4 solution has increased from 15 L/m2.h for the original membrane at 5 bar, to 31.2 L/m2.h for the membrane produced under optimal conditions. By increasing the applied pressure to 20 bar, the permeate flux can be further increased to 124 L/m2.h, while keeping the salt rejection consistent at 91-94%.
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