Creating Hydrophilic Water Pathway on Membrane with Straight Pores

Abstract

Water is a strategic resource for cities and industries, and reserving this fresh water is a big challenge for them. Osmosis pressure has become the most popular way to treat water; to get drinkable water or to remove contaminated water. Several technologies have emerged from the osmosis phenomenon; reverse osmosis (RO), forward osmosis (FO), and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) are examples to manage water for varieties of uses. Each of these technologies needs specific semipermeable membrane with district attributes to optimize their performance.

This work is focused on advancing the semipermeable membrane for the use in RO and FO settings. To maximize water flux, straight pores have been made by using dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2) crystals as a solvent for polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) above its melting temperature. As PVDF is inherently a hydrophobic material, the entrance of water can be hindered, and the flux of water can be slowed down. To address this issue hydrophilic metal–organic frameworks, (MOF) MIL-101 was introduced to the polyamide (PA) active layer of the membrane. The addition of MOF showed higher flux through the membrane but lower salt rejection by increasing the MOF concentration.