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Study of Surface Properties and Performance of Reverse Osmosis Membranes after Surface Modification via Irradiation

Asadollahi, Mahdieh | 2019

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  1. Type of Document: Ph.D. Dissertation
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 52462 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Bastani, Dariush; Mousavi, Abbas
  7. Abstract:
  8. Today reverse osmosis (RO) is the dominant technology for desalination. Most of commercially available RO membranes are polyamide thin film composite (TFC) types which exhibit good performance. However, the major obstacle for application of polyamide TFC RO membranes is fouling which can be mitigate by surface modification.In this research, surface modification of fabricated aromatic polyamide TFC RO membranes was carried out using UV-initiated graft polymerization at different irradiation times (15, 30, 60, and 90 s) and various acrylamide concentrations (10, 20, and 30 g/L). Also, coating of membranes surface with various concentrations of TiO2 nanoparticles (10, 20, 30, and 50 ppm) followed by the same UV irradiation times was studied. After that, the membranes were modified by grafting of acrylamide blended with TiO2 nanoparticles via UV irradiation. The characterization of membranes surface properties as well as their performance were systematically carried out. The results demonstrated the enhanced hydrophilicity of modified membranes and confirmed the presence of acrylamide and nanoparticles on the membranes surface. Acrylamide grafted membranes could reach to higher water flux than unmodified membrane with little reduction in salt rejection. Moreover, TiO2 coated membranes indicated enhancement of water flux continuously with increase in nanoparticles concentration and irradiation time and rejection of membranes was decreased slightly at low UV irradiation times. Also, RO membranes modified simultaneously with acrylamide and TiO2 nanoparticles under UV irradiation exhibited improved water flux up to 18%, slightly higher rejection, and considerable better fouling resistance compared with unmodified one
  9. Keywords:
  10. Reverse Osmosis Membrane ; Surface Functionality ; Acryle Amide ; Titanium Oxide Nanoparticles ; Ultraviolet Radiation ; Irradiation

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