Heat diffusion during thin-film composite membrane formation
Name
Deshmukh2024_HeatDiffusion_Preprint.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
7.06 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
098760e56ab8a83f3a59f1a923c60d3f
Author(s)
Deshmukh, Akshay
Lienhard, John H
Elimelech, Menachem
Date Issued
March 2024
Journal
Journal of Membrane Science
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Deshmukh, Akshay, Lienhard, John H. and Elimelech, Menachem. 2024. "Heat diffusion during thin-film composite membrane formation." Journal of Membrane Science, 696.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Thin-film composite (TFC) membranes, the backbone of modern reverse osmosis and nanofiltration, combine the high separation performance of a thin selective layer with the robust mechanical support. Previous studies have shown that heat released during interfacial polymerization (IP) can have a significant impact on the physical and chemical structure of the selective layer. In this study, we develop a multilayer transient
heat conduction model to analyze how the thermal properties of the materials used in
TFC fabrication impact interfacial temperature, focusing on support-free (SFIP), conventional (CIP), and interlayer-modulated IP (IMIP). Using a combination of analytic
solutions and computational models, we demonstrate that the thermal effusivities of
fluid and material layers can have a significant effect on the temporal evolution of
interfacial temperature during IP. In CIP, we show that the presence of a polymeric
support adjacent to the reaction interface yields a 20% to 60% increase in interfacial
temperature rise, lasting for ∼ 0.1 s. Furthermore, we demonstrate that inorganic or
metallic interlayers, which have high thermal effusivities, can lead to short-lived orderof-magnitude reductions in interfacial temperature rise. Finally, we provide analytical
approximations for transient heat conduction through multilayered systems, enabling
rapid evaluation of the thermal impact of novel membrane support and interlayer materials and structures on interfacial temperature during TFC fabrication. Quantifying
how the thermal properties of solvents, support layers, and interlayers affect interfacial
temperature during IP is critical for the rational design of new TFC membranes.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2024.122493
