Gang Han, Robin M. Studer, Moonjoo Lee, Katherine Mizrahi Rodriguez, Justin J. Teesdale, Zachary P. Smith
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Polyamide thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes provide a promising pathway to alleviate the trade-off between water permeability and selectivity of conventional thin-film composite (TFC) membranes. However, the fabrication of defect-free TFN membranes with enhanced permselectivity remains a challenge due to the formation of defects at the polyamide–filler interface and from filler agglomeration. In this study, a facile interfacial modification strategy was demonstrated to effectively mitigate particle agglomeration and enhance the interaction between the polyamide with the filler particles using UiO-66-NH2 nanoparticles as the probe fillers, leading to the formation of TFN membranes with excellent interfacial compatibility and selectivity toward both salt ions and small neutral molecules. The TFN membrane with an optimized particle loading shows high rejections of 97.0–99.2% to NaCl, MgCl2, Na2SO4, and MgSO4 with a water flux greater than 4.0 L m–2 h–1 at a relatively low pressure of 150 psi, which represents a ≥23.0% increase in salt rejections relative to the TFC benchmark. Additionally, the TFN membranes show great potential for effectively discriminating small neutral contaminants such as boric acid (H3BO3) at a pH value of 7.5, outperforming the commercial TFC membrane benchmark at the same testing conditions. The structural stability of the TFN membranes was confirmed by performing a continuous performance test of 480 h. These findings demonstrate that enhanced size screening for various species can be achieved by TFN membranes based on the engineered interfacial structure of the porous fillers, and the reported method represents an advancement in addressing permselectivity limitations in classic TFNs through a multifaceted yet generalizable approach of reducing particle agglomeration and creating compatible polymer–filler interfaces. We believe this strategy can be applied broadly with different filler systems, enabling TFNs to address a wide variety of unmet separation needs.
期刊介绍:
The journal Chemistry of Materials focuses on publishing original research at the intersection of materials science and chemistry. The studies published in the journal involve chemistry as a prominent component and explore topics such as the design, synthesis, characterization, processing, understanding, and application of functional or potentially functional materials. The journal covers various areas of interest, including inorganic and organic solid-state chemistry, nanomaterials, biomaterials, thin films and polymers, and composite/hybrid materials. The journal particularly seeks papers that highlight the creation or development of innovative materials with novel optical, electrical, magnetic, catalytic, or mechanical properties. It is essential that manuscripts on these topics have a primary focus on the chemistry of materials and represent a significant advancement compared to prior research. Before external reviews are sought, submitted manuscripts undergo a review process by a minimum of two editors to ensure their appropriateness for the journal and the presence of sufficient evidence of a significant advance that will be of broad interest to the materials chemistry community.