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A Novel Thin-Film Nanocomposite Nanofiltration Membrane by Incorporating 3D Hyperbranched Polymer Functionalized 2D
Quanling Xie1,2, Shishen Zhang3,4, Hanjun Ma5,6
1Engineering Research Center of Marine Biological Resource Comprehensive Utilization, SOA, The Third Institute of Oceanography of the State Oceanic Administration, Xiamen 361005, China. qlxie@tio.org.cn.
Abstract:
In order to develop a high-performance thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) nanofiltration (NF) membrane, the functionalized graphene-based nanomaterial (GO-HBE-COOH) was synthesized by combining two-dimensional graphene oxide (GO) with a three-dimensional hyperbranched polymer, which was used as the novel nanofiller and successfully embedded into the polypiperazine-amide (PPA) active layers on polysulfone (PSU) substrates via interfacial polymerization (IP) process. The resultant NF membranes were characterized using ATR-FTIR, SEM, and AFM, while their performance was evaluated in terms of water flux, salt rejection, antifouling ability, and chlorine resistance. The influence of GO-HBE-COOH concentration on the morphologies, properties, and performance of TFN NF membranes was investigated. With the addition of 60 ppm GO-HBE-COOH, the TFN-GHC-60 NF membrane exhibited the optimal water flux without a sacrifice of the salt rejection. It was found that the introduction of GO-HBE-COOH nanosheets favored the formation of a thinner and smoother nanocomposite active layer with an enhanced hydrophilicity and negative charge. As a result, TFN NF membranes demonstrated a superior permeaselectivity, antifouling ability, and chlorine resistance over the conventional PPA thin-film composite (TFC) membranes.
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