Progress in Manufacturing and Applications of Composite Membranes

A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Processing and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 7900

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Italian National Research Council | CNR · Institute on Membrane Technology ITM
Interests: membrane technology; membrane fabrication, characterisation and application in environmental field; polymeric membranes for water treatment; membrane production using greener solvents; biopolymeric membranes; polymeric capsules preparation by membrane; membrane emulsification; pervaporation; removal of contaminants from water; organic/organic separations by pervaporation; aroma recovery from natural matrices by pervaporation

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Guest Editor
A.V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Lenynsky prospect 29, Moscow 119991, Russia
Interests: polymeric materials; polysiloxanes; polysulfone; highly permeable glassy polymers; membrane formation; vacuum pervaporation; thermopervaporation; recovery of alcohols from fermentation broth; gas separation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Composite membranes (CM) are applied in a wide range of membrane processes where separation occurs at the molecular level, for instance, gas separation, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, pervaporation, vapor permeation, and gas–liquid membrane contactors. CM are widely used due to their flexibility in design. This is possible because CM consist of several layers of different materials, each performing a specific function. This membrane structure provides significant advantages. New CM can be manufactured on the basis of commercial porous supports with known characteristics. CM have fewer limitations on the mechanical properties of the selective layer material and processability. They also enable optimizing each structural element of a membrane and coating very thin selective layers. Thus, novel and very expensive advanced materials manufactured in limited quantities can be used. However, the complex structure of CM, as well as their high performance, poses the following challenges for researchers and engineers: optimization of the structure and modification of the porous support before casting the selective layer; application of gutter and protective layers to cast and ensure a defect-free high permeable selective layer; problems of accelerated aging of membrane material in thin films, and its plasticization in the feed mixture; concentration polarization in boundary layer; and modeling of mass and heat transfer through the membrane. This Special Issue of Membranes on “Progress in Manufacturing and Applications of Composite Membranes” is dedicated to providing comprehensive coverage on the state-of-the-art and future development, preparation, and study of advanced CM and related processes. Both original research articles and reviews are welcomed.

Dr. Alberto FIGOLI
Dr. Ilya L. Borisov
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Composite membrane
  • Polymeric membrane
  • Membrane fabrication
  • Gas and liquid purification
  • Mass and heat transfer modeling
  • Pervaporation
  • Membrane coating

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3821 KiB  
Article
Transport Analysis of Anti-Wetting Composite Fibrous Membranes for Membrane Distillation
by Jingcheng Cai, Zeman Liu and Fei Guo
Membranes 2021, 11(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes11010014 - 24 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1876
Abstract
Composite electrospun fibrous membranes are widely studied for the application of membrane distillation. It is an effective approach to enhance the membrane distillation performance in terms of anti-wetting surface and permeate flux by fabricating composite fibrous membranes (CFMs) with a thin skin layer [...] Read more.
Composite electrospun fibrous membranes are widely studied for the application of membrane distillation. It is an effective approach to enhance the membrane distillation performance in terms of anti-wetting surface and permeate flux by fabricating composite fibrous membranes (CFMs) with a thin skin layer on a thick supporting layer. In this work, various membranes prepared with different pore sizes and porosities by polyacrylonitrile and polyvinylpyrrolidone were prepared. The membrane characteristics and membrane distillation performance were tested. The mass transfer across the membranes was analyzed experimentally and theoretically in detail. It is shown that the skin layer significantly increases liquid entry pressure of the CFM by 5 times. All the membranes have a similar permeate flux. The permeate flux of membranes is stable at 19.2 ± 1.2 kg/m2/h, and the salt rejection ratios remain above 99.98% at 78 ± 1 °C for 11 h. The pore size and porosity of membranes have an insignificant effect on the temperature distribution of membrane. The porosity and pore size of the skin layer have an insignificant effect on the mass transfer process of the CFM. The mass transfer process of the CFM is governed by the supporting layer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Manufacturing and Applications of Composite Membranes)
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15 pages, 8260 KiB  
Article
Aging of Thin-Film Composite Membranes Based on Crosslinked PTMSP/PEI Loaded with Highly Porous Carbon Nanoparticles of Infrared Pyrolyzed Polyacrylonitrile
by Danila Bakhtin, Stepan Bazhenov, Victoria Polevaya, Evgenia Grushevenko, Sergey Makaev, Galina Karpacheva, Vladimir Volkov and Alexey Volkov
Membranes 2020, 10(12), 419; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10120419 - 14 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2545
Abstract
The mitigation of the physical aging of thin-film composite (TFC) poly[1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne] (PTMSP) membranes was studied via the simultaneous application of a polymer-selective layer crosslinking and mixed-matrix membrane approach. For the first time, a recently developed highly porous activated carbon material (infrared (IR) pyrolyzed [...] Read more.
The mitigation of the physical aging of thin-film composite (TFC) poly[1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne] (PTMSP) membranes was studied via the simultaneous application of a polymer-selective layer crosslinking and mixed-matrix membrane approach. For the first time, a recently developed highly porous activated carbon material (infrared (IR) pyrolyzed poly[acrylonitrile] (PAN) or IR-PAN-a) was investigated as an additive to a PTMSP-selective layer for the reduction of aging in TFC membranes. The total electric energy spent on the IR irradiation treatment of IR-PAN-a particles was twice lower than conventional heating. The flat-sheet porous microfiltration membrane MFFK-1 was used as a support, and the crosslinked PTMSP/PEI loaded with a porous filler was applied as a selective layer (0.8–1.8 µm thick) to the TFC membranes. The initial IR-PAN-a sample was additionally milled to obtain a milled IR-PAN-aM sample with a monomodal particle size distribution of 500–800 nm. It was shown that IR-PAN-a, as a filler material with a high surface area and pore volume (2450 m2/g and 1.06 cm3/g, respectively) and a well-developed sponge-like structure, leads to the increase of the N2, O2, and CO2 permeance of PTMSP-based hybrid membrane material and the decrease of the aging of PTMSP. The simultaneous effect of crosslinking and the addition of a highly porous filler essentially improved the aging behavior of PTMSP-based TFC membranes. The monomodal and narrow particle size distribution of highly porous activated IR-pyrolyzed PAN is a key factor for the production of TFC membranes with reduced aging. The highest stability was achieved by the addition of a milled IR-PAN-aM sample (10 wt%). TFC membrane permeance was 6300 GPU (30% of initial permeance) after 11,000 h of aging at ambient laboratory conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Manufacturing and Applications of Composite Membranes)
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25 pages, 7382 KiB  
Article
Effect of the Formation of Ultrathin Selective Layers on the Structure and Performance of Thin-Film Composite Chitosan/PAN Membranes for Pervaporation Dehydration
by Mariia Dmitrenko, Andrey Zolotarev, Tatiana Plisko, Katsiaryna Burts, Vladislav Liamin, Alexandr Bildyukevich, Sergey Ermakov and Anastasia Penkova
Membranes 2020, 10(7), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10070153 - 16 Jul 2020
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3133
Abstract
The aim of the study is to improve the performance of thin-film composite (TFC) membranes with a thin selective layer based on chitosan (CS) via different approaches by: (1) varying the concentration of the CS solution; (2) changing the porosity of substrates from [...] Read more.
The aim of the study is to improve the performance of thin-film composite (TFC) membranes with a thin selective layer based on chitosan (CS) via different approaches by: (1) varying the concentration of the CS solution; (2) changing the porosity of substrates from polyacrylonitrile (PAN); (3) deposition of the additional ultrathin layers on the surface of the selective CS layer using interfacial polymerization and layer-by-layer assembly. The developed membranes were characterized by different methods of analyses (SEM and AFM, IR spectroscopy, measuring of water contact angles and porosity). The transport characteristics of the developed TFC membranes were studied in pervaporation separation of isopropanol/water mixtures. It was found that the application of the most porous PAN-4 substrate with combination of formation of an additional polyamide selective layer by interfacial polymerization on the surface of a dense selective CS layer with the subsequent layer-by-layer deposition of five bilayers of poly (sodium 4-styrenesulfonate)/CS polyelectrolyte pair led to the significant improvement of permeance and high selectivity for the entire concentration feed range. Thus, for TFC membrane on the PAN-4 substrate the optimal transport characteristics in pervaporation dehydration of isopropanol (12–90 wt.% water) were achieved: 0.22–1.30 kg/(m2h), 99.9 wt.% water in the permeate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Manufacturing and Applications of Composite Membranes)
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