Enhancing the Permselectivity of Thin-Film Composite Membranes Interlayered with MoS<sub>2</sub> Nanosheets via Precise Thickness Control
Author(s)
Cao, Siyu
Deshmukh, Akshay
Wang, Li
Han, Qi
Shu, Yufei
Ng, How Yong
Wang, Zhongying
Lienhard, John H
Date Issued
May 18, 2022
Journal
Environmental Science & Technology
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Citation
Cao, Siyu, Deshmukh, Akshay, Wang, Li, Han, Qi, Shu, Yufei et al. 2022. "Enhancing the Permselectivity of Thin-Film Composite Membranes Interlayered with MoS2 Nanosheets via Precise Thickness Control." Environmental Science & Technology, 56 (12).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The demand for highly permeable and selective thin-film composite (TFC) nanofiltration membranes, which are essential for seawater and brackish water softening and resource recovery, is growing rapidly. However, improving and tuning membrane permeability and selectivity simultaneously remains highly challenging owing to the lack of thickness control in polyamide films. In this study, we fabricated high-performance interlayered TFC membrane through classical interfacial polymerization on a MoS2-coated polyethersulfone substrate. Due to the enhanced confinement effect on the interface degassing and the improved adsorption of the amine monomer by the MoS2 interlayer, the MoS2-interlayered TFC membrane exhibited enhanced roughness and crosslinking. Compared to the control TFC membrane, MoS2-interlayered TFC membranes have a thinner polyamide layer, with thickness ranging from to 85 nm, that can be tuned by altering the MoS2 interlayer thickness. A multilayer permeation model was developed to delineate and analyze the transport resistance and permeability of the MoS2-interlayer and polyamide film through the regression of experimental data. The optimized MoS2-interlayered TFC membrane (0.3-inter) had a 96.8% Na2SO4 rejection combined with an excellent permeability of 15.9 L m-2 38 h-1 bar-1 39 (LMH/bar), approximately 2.4 times that of the control membrane (6.6 LMH/bar). This research provides feasible strategy for rational design of tunable, high-performance NF membranes for environmental applications.
Subjects
Environmental Chemistry
General Chemistry
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/10.1021/acs.est.2c00551
