Water transport through ultrathin polyamide nanofilms used for reverse osmosis
File(s)
Author(s)
Jiang, Z
Karan, Santanu
Livingston, Andrew
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Thin‐film composite membranes comprising a polyamide nanofilm separating layer on a support material are state of the art for desalination by reverse osmosis. Nanofilm thickness is thought to determine the rate of water transport through the membranes; although due to the fast and relatively uncontrolled interfacial polymerization reaction employed to form these nanofilms, they are typically crumpled and the separating layer is reported to be ≈50–200 nm thick. This crumpled structure has confounded exploration of the independent effects of thickness, permeation mechanism, and the support material. Herein, smooth sub‐8 nm polyamide nanofilms are fabricated at a free aqueous–organic interface, exhibiting chemical homogeneity at both aqueous and organic facing surfaces. Transfer of these ultrathin nanofilms onto porous supports provides fast water transport through the resulting nanofilm composite membranes. Manipulating the intrinsic nanofilm thickness from ≈15 down to 8 nm reveals that water permeance increases proportionally with the thickness decrease, after which it increases nonlinearly to 2.7 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 as the thickness is further reduced to ≈6 nm.
Date Issued
2018-04-12
Date Acceptance
2018-01-12
Citation
Advanced Materials, 2018, 30 (15)
ISSN
0935-9648
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Advanced Materials
Volume
30
Issue
15
Copyright Statement
© 2018 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.201705973
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
BP , Inc.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Grant Number
EP/J014974/1
EP/J014974/1
BP
EPRSC
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Technology
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry, Physical
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Physics, Applied
Physics, Condensed Matter
Chemistry
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Materials Science
Physics
composite membranes
desalination
interfacial polymerization
reverse osmosis
ultrathin nanofilms
FILM COMPOSITE MEMBRANES
INTERFACIAL POLYMERIZATION
MOLECULAR SEPARATION
SUPPORT MEMBRANE
THIN-FILMS
PERMEATION
NANOFILTRATION
MICROPOROSITY
DESALINATION
LAYER
02 Physical Sciences
03 Chemical Sciences
09 Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
1705973
Date Publish Online
2018-02-27