Open AccessCharacteristic and Performance of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membranes Blended with Lithium Chloride in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation
Author(s) -
Soon Onn Lai,
Kok Chung Chong,
K. M. Lee,
Woei Jye Lau,
B. S. Ooi
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
jurnal teknologi/jurnal teknologi
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2180-3722
pISSN - 0127-9696
DOI - 10.11113/jt.v69.3404
Subject(s) - membrane distillation , polyvinylidene fluoride , membrane , phase inversion , chemical engineering , permeation , desalination , lithium chloride , materials science , contact angle , distillation , reverse osmosis , membrane technology , chemistry , chromatography , composite material , inorganic chemistry , biochemistry , engineering
Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the recent rising membrane separation techniques adopted in the desalination and wastewater treatment. Unlike other pressure-driven separation processes such as reverse osmosis and nanofiltration, MD is a thermal-driven process which involves vapor pressure difference across the feed and permeates solutions. As such, MD requires low energy consumption. Hydrophobic polymeric materials such as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are frequently used in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) due to low surface energy and promising thermal resistance. In this study, the DCMD hollow fiber membranes were separately prepared with PVDF and PVDF blended with lithium chloride (LiCl) through dry/wet phase inversion method. Subsequently, the membranes were used in a DCMD process to remove sodium chloride (NaCl) under different feed inlet temperatures to examine the effect of LiCl additives on the neat membrane. The result showed that by adding LiCl into the neat membrane solution, the finger-like structure was change to a sponge-like structure with microvoids. Furthermore, the performance of the LiCl additive membrane in term of permeate flux was found to be 20% higher compared to that of the neat membrane. Other results of the membrane characteristics were also discussed.