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Synthesis and characterization of PVC‐TFC hollow fibers for forward osmosis application
Author(s) -
AlMusawy Wafaa Kh.,
AlFuraiji Mustafa H.,
Alsalhy Qusay F.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.50871
Subject(s) - thin film composite membrane , interfacial polymerization , forward osmosis , membrane , materials science , polyvinyl chloride , chemical engineering , phase inversion , scanning electron microscope , desalination , polyamide , contact angle , polymer , fourier transform infrared spectroscopy , reverse osmosis , pressure retarded osmosis , substrate (aquarium) , polymer chemistry , composite material , chemistry , biochemistry , monomer , engineering , oceanography , geology
Forward osmosis (FO) is considered among the most encouraging water desalination processes as a result of its high performance and low energy demand. Thin‐film composite (TFC) hollow fibers (HF) were synthesized and examined in the FO process. Three different concentrations of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) support polymer were fabricated via the phase inversion technique. The polyamide layer was synthesized on the outer surface of the PVC‐HF substrate via interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction. To the best of our knowledge, PVC HF was used in this research for the first time as a support for TFC‐FO membranes. PVC HFs have high‐quality specifications that are expected to have outstanding performance in TFC‐FO applications, especially for water desalination. The obtained membranes were characterized using contact angle measurement, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscope and Fourier‐transform Infrared. The performance of the PVC‐TFC HF was examined in the FO under standard conditions. Results showed that the membrane fabricated with a lower concentration of PVC substrate exhibited higher water flux in comparison to the higher concentration PVC membrane. Changing the concentration of PVC from 15% to 18% reduced water flux from 25 to 13 L m −2 h −1 ; however, salt flux also decreased from 8 to 3 g m −2 h −1 .