Impacts of PVDF polymorphism and surface printing micro-roughness on superhydrophobic membrane to desalinate high saline water
Author | Teoh, Guang Hui |
Author | Ooi, Boon Seng |
Author | Jawad, Zeinab Abbas |
Author | Low, Siew Chun |
Available date | 2024-04-22T04:57:06Z |
Publication Date | 2021 |
Publication Name | Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering |
Resource | Scopus |
ISSN | 22133437 |
Abstract | Many studies have focused on increasing the superhydrophobicity of membranes to enhance the sustainable desalination capability of membrane distillation (MD) process. This work focuses on the influences of crystalline β-polymorphs and micro-roughness surface-printing, to transform the surface of hydrophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes to achieve superhydrophobicity. This study uses two types of PVDF (HV- and LV-PVDF) with different polymer chain lengths and polymer densities. According to FTIR analyses, the membranes synthesized using HV- and LV-PVDF are mainly composed of β-phase polymorphs, with relative fractions of 0.633 and 0.472, respectively. The high content of hydrophilic β-phase polymorphs renders the contact angle (CA) of the non-surface-printed HV-PVDF membrane as low as 87.2º. Through the uniformly distributed micro-scaled structures on the surface-printed PVDF membranes, the surface-printed HV-PVDF membrane successfully surpassed the superhydrophobicity, with a CA of 151.1º and a dynamic sliding angle (SA) of 13º. Regardless of the surface-printing, the HV-PVDF membranes remain a similar surface porosity (42%). The results proved that the layered micro-roughness of surface-printing can resist membrane wetting during MD separation by achieving at least a four-fold increase in average permeation flux from 2.5 kg/m2 h to 10 kg/m2 h and salt rejection of 99.99%. This study qualitatively explains the importance of material chemistry (β-phase polymorphs) and surface roughness (micro-roughness), which affect membrane wetting resistance during MD. |
Sponsor | This work was financially supported by Ministry of Education Malaysia Long Term Research Grant Scheme 1/2018, Malaysia ( LRGS/203/PJKIMIA/67215002 ). |
Language | en |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Subject | Hierarchical micro-structured Highly hydrophobic Membrane distillation Surface chemistry Water conservation |
Type | Article |
Issue Number | 4 |
Volume Number | 9 |
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