A Study for Water Purification Using Reverse Osmosis Membrane Modified with Carbon Nanotube

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assist. Prof., Faculty of Engineering, Civil Engineering Department, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assist. prof., Faculty of Chemistry, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

3 MSc Student in Civil-Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Water desalination systems is among the methods used to produce potable water to be used for domestic, agricultural and industrial applications.  Reverse osmosis is a common methods  employed for desalination facilities, mainly because of its low energy consumption, and high efficiency for permeate production. The main aim of this research is to use nanocomposite containing carbon nanotubes to improve membrane wall performance. in addition, the increase in the flux as a result of decreased clogging surface on the membrane was also studied.  To accomplish the objective of the study, the synthesized polyamid reverse osmosis nanocomposite membrane were used for purification of brackish water with the characteristic of having the electroconductivity of 4000 µs/cm. The modified raw-multi walled carbon nanotubes membrane was embedded through polymerization method in order to increase porosities and hydrophilicity. Analysis of Contact angle, SEM, FTIR and AFM were done for recognizing the compounds which were created on the surface of membranes and membranes hydrophilicity. Three sets of samples were prepared for testing in the membrane cell synthesis analysis. Water flux and rejection rates were assessed every 30 minutes. Results of this study showed that the membranes have soft hydrophil surfaces and by increasing nanocomposite concentrations with specified measure, the water flux increased up to 30.8 L/m2h which was noticeable compared to the simple polyamide membranes. Our results also showed that fouling reduced considerably and the clogging condition was reduced by nanocomposite membranes, and the rejection rate was higher than 97 percent for all synthesized membranes with pyrrol.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Ahn, C.H., Baek, Y., Lee, C., Kim, S.O., Kim, S., Lee, S., et al., 2012, "Carbon nanotube-based membranes: Fabrication and application to desalination", Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 18(5), 1551-1559.
Baker, R.W., 2000, Membrane technology, Wiley Online Library, N.Y.
Baroña, G.N.B., Lim, J., Choi, M. & Jung, B., 2013, "Interfacial polymerization of polyamide-aluminosilicate SWNT nanocomposite membranes for reverse osmosis", Desalination, 325, 138-147.
Bhaumik, M., Agarwal, S., Gupta, V.K., & Maity, A., 2016, "Enhanced removal of Cr (VI) from aqueous solutions using polypyrrole wrapped oxidized MWCNTs nanocomposites adsorbent", Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 470, 257-267.
Chan, W. F., Chen, H.Y., Marand, E. & Johnson, J.K. 2013, Functionalized carbon nanotube nanocomposite membranes for water desalination: Experimental study", AIChE Annual Metting, USA.
Dumée, L., Lee, J., Sears, K., Tardy, B., Duke, M., & Gray, S., 2013, "Fabrication of thin film composite poly (amide)-carbon-nanotube supported membranes for enhanced performance in osmotically driven desalination systems", Journal of Membrane Science, 427, 422-430.
Ghosh, A., Bindal, R., Prabhakar, S. & Tewari, P., 2011, "Composite polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) membranes–recent developments and future directions", BARC Newsletter, 321, 43-51.
Hollas, J.M. 2004, Modern spectroscopy, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. N.Y.
Karbalaee, F., 2010, "Water crisis in Iran", IEEE, Kyoto, Japan.
Kim, E.-S., Hwang, G., El-Din, M.G. & Liu, Y., 2012, "Development of nanosilver and multi-walled carbon nanotubes thin-film nanocomposite membrane for enhanced water treatment", Journal of Membrane Science, 394, 37-48.
Kim, H.J., Choi, K., Baek, Y., Kim, D.G., Shim, J., Yoon, J. et al., 2014, "High-performance reverse osmosis CNT/polyamide nanocomposite membrane by controlled interfacial interactions", ACS applied Materials & Interfaces, 6(4), 2819-2829.
Lee, K.P., Arnot, T.C. & Mattia, D., 2011, "A review of reverse osmosis membrane materials for desalination—development to date and future potential", Journal of Membrane Science, 370(1), 1-22.
Pavia, D.L., Lampman, G.M., Kriz, G.S., & Vyvyan, J.A., 2008, Introduction to spectroscopy, Brooks/Cole Pub., C.A.
Petersen, R.J., 1993, "Composite reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes", Journal of Membrane Science, 83(1), 81-150.
Pradeep, T., 2009, "Noble metal nanoparticles for water purification: A critical review", Thin Solid Films, 517(24), 6441-6478.
Qi, L., & Xu, Z., 2004, "Lead sorption from aqueous solutions on chitosan nanoparticles", Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 251(1), 183-190.
Son, M., Choi, H., Liu, L., Celik, E., Park, H. & Choi, H., 2015, "Efficacy of carbon nanotube positioning in the polyethersulfone support layer on the performance of thin-film composite membrane for desalination", Chemical Engineering Journal, 266, 376-384.
Vatanpour, V., & Zoqi, N., 2016, "Surface modification of commercial seawater reverse osmosis membranes by grafting of hydrophilic monomer blended with carboxylated multiwalled carbon nanotubes", Applied Surface Science, 396, 1478-1489.
Vatanpour, V., Esmaeili, M. & Farahani, M.H.D.A., 2014, "Fouling reduction and retention increment of polyethersulfone nanofiltration membranes embedded by amine-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes", Journal of Membrane Science, 466, 70-81.
Vatanpour, V., Madaeni, S.S., Moradian, R., Zinadini, S. & Astinchap, B., 2012, "Novel antibifouling nanofiltration polyethersulfone membrane fabricated from embedding TiO2 coated multiwalled carbon nanotubes", Separation and Purification Technology, 90, 69-82.
Werder, T., Walther, J.H., Jaffe, R.L., Halicioglu, T., Noca, F. & Koumoutsakos, P., 2001, "Molecular dynamics simulation of contact angles of water droplets in carbon nanotubes", Nano Letters, 1(12), 697-702.
Wu, H., Tang, B. & Wu, P., 2013, "Optimization, characterization and nanofiltration properties test of MWNTs/polyester thin film nanocomposite membrane", Journal of Membrane Science, 428, 425-243.
Zarrabi, H., Yekavalangi, M.E., Vatanpour, V., Shockravi, A. & Safarpour, M., 2016, "Improvement in desalination performance of thin film nanocomposite nanofiltration membrane using amine-functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotube", Desalination, 394, 83-90.
Zhang, L., Shi, G.Z., Qiu, S., Cheng, L.H., & Chen, H.L., 2011, "Preparation of high-flux thin film nanocomposite reverse osmosis membranes by incorporating functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes", Desalination and Water Treatment, 34(1-3), 19-24.
Zhao, H., Qiu, S.,Wu, L., Zhang, L., Chen, H. & Gao, C., 2014, "Improving the performance of polyamide reverse osmosis membrane by incorporation of modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes", Journal of Membrane Science, 450, 249-256.
Zheng, X., Chen, D., Lei, Y. & Cheng, R., 2013, "Nano-TiO2 membrane adsorption reactor (MAR) for virus removal in drinking water", Chemical Engineering Journal, 230, 180-187.
Journal of Water and Wastewater; Ab va Fazilab ( in persian )
Volume 29, Issue 5 - Serial Number 117
November and December 2018
Pages 1-11

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics