• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.135-153
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• 1998

Nanofiltration (NF) is a recently introduced term in membrane separation. In 1988, Eriksson was one of the first authors using the word 'nanofiltration' explicitly. Some years before, FilmTech started to use this term for their NF50 membrane which was supposed to be a very loose reverse osmosis membrane or a very tight ultrafiltration membrane. Since then, this term has been introduced to indicate a specific boundary of membrane technology in between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. The application fields of the NF membranes are very broad as follows: Demeneralizing water, Cleaning up contaminated groundwater, Ultrapure water production, Treatment of effleunts containing heavy metals, Offshore oil platforms, Yeast production, Pulp and paper mills, Textile production, Electroless copper plating, Cheese whey production, Cyclodextrin production, Lactose production. The earliest NF membrane was made by Cadotte et al, using piperazine and trimesoyl chloride as monomers for the formation of polyamide active layer of the composite type membrane. They coated very thin interfacially potymerized polyamide on the surface of the microporous polysulfone supports. The NF membrane exhibited low rejections for monovalent anions (chloride) and high rejections for bivalent anions (sulphate). This membrane was called NS300. Some of the earliest NF membranes, like the NF40 membrane of FilmTech, the NTR7250 of Nitto-Denko and the UTC20 and UTC60 of Toray, are formed by a comparable synthesis route as the NS300 membrane. Commercially available NF membranes nowadays are as follows: ASP35 (Advanced Membrane Technology), MPF21; MPF32 (Kiryat Weizmann), UTC20; UTC60; UTC70; UTC90 (Toray), CTA-LP; TFCS (Fluid Systems), NF45; NF70 (FilmTec), BQ01; MX07; HG01; HG19; SX01; SX10 (Osmonics), 8040-LSY-PVDI (Hydranautics), NF CA30; NF PES 10 (Hoechst), WFN0505 (Stork Friesland). The typical ones among the commercially available NF membranes are polyamide composite membrane consisting of interfacially polymerized polyamide active layer and microporous support. While showing high water fluxes and high rejections of multivalent ions and small organic molecules, these membranes have relatively low chemical stability. These membranes have low chlorine tolerance and are unstable in acid or base solution. This chemical instability is appearing to be a big obstacle for their applications. To improve the chemical stability, we have tried, in this study, to prepare chemically stable NF membranes from PVA. The ionomers and interfacially polymerized polyamide were used for the modification of'the PVA membranes. For the detail study of the active layer, homogeneous NF membranes made only from active layer materials were prepared and for the high performance, composite type NF membranes were prepared by coating the active layer materials on microporous polysulfone supports.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.283-292
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• 2020

Various kind of solutions need to be separated, purified, and concentrated using membranes in the field of industries. However, when the solution contains strong acids, the use of membrane is limited. Acid resistant membrane currently available in market does not show high efficiency of flux. This review explains the causes and mechanisms of changes in surface properties and performance of polyamide membranes when exposed to acidic solutions, and this can be used in the development of a membrane with acid resistance and high flux.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.276-285
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• 1997

The theoretical and experimental analysis on polyamide used for reverse osmosis thin-film composite membrane had been conducted. The physicochemical properties of polyamide had been varied by preparation recipes which depends on kinds of monomer, solvents and polymerization time. These properties and performance as a reverse osmosis membrane had been calculated by group contribution method. The experimental results has the same trends with theoretical preview.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.281-290
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• 2016

Thin film composite (TFC) polyamide membranes were prepared on polysulfone (PSF) supports for forward osmosis (FO) applications. To understand the influence of polarity and porosity of support layer on the formation of polyamide structure and the final FO performance, clathochelate metal complex (MC) contained PSF supports were prepared via the phase inversion process from various PSF casting solutions containing 0.1-0.5 wt% of MC in dimethyl formamide (DMF) solvent (18 wt%). A crosslinked aromatic polyamide layer was then fabricated on top of each support to form a TFC membrane. For the porous PSF supports prepared with relatively low concentration casting solutions (12 wt%), the PET film was removed after phase inversion and crosslinked aromatic polyamide layer was then fabricated. The tested sample from PSF (18 wt%)/MC (0.5 wt%) casting solution presented outstanding FO performance, almost similar water flux (9.99 LMH) with lower reverse salt flux (RSF, 0.77 GMH) compared to commercial HTI FO membrane(10.97 LMH of flux and 2.2 GMH of RSF). By addition of MC in casting solution, the thickness of the active layer in FO membranes was reduced, however, the increased RSF value was obtained.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.88-99
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• 2014

Demand for water is increasing due to rapid population growth and increased industrial activities. Membrane technologies have attracted most attention as a promising advanced technology for the supply of sustainable water resources. Chemical and structural properties of polyamide membranes, one of the most widely used membranes in water treatment plant, has been reported to be affected by residual chlorine dissolved in water after chlorine disinfection. This paper focuses on the chlorine speciation at various solution pHs and change of surface properties/performance of polyamide membranes due to the chlorine exposure.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.201-209
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• 2012

Membrane separation technologies have some of advantages are considered a better alternative to traditional methods. Research of novel membranes is very vital for covering the higher required of membrane in several purposes like water desalting technology. In this work polyamide-6/cellulose acetate (PA-6/CA) blend membrane was developed according to the wet phase inversion system. The structures of the prepared membranes were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM images showed uniform particles distribution in the prepared membranes. Moreover, SEM images revealed that the membranes have relatively uniform surface (PA-6/CA). PA-6/CA blend membranes systems are evaluated by using synthetic NaCl solution. The separation performance showed that salt rejection increased with increasing of heat treatment of the casted films and it was improved with increasing of operating pressure.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.42-49
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• 1998

By checking the variations of the raw water quality and MLSS, the effects of the membrane materials on permeable flux and quality of the treated water were investigated in this study. Due to the stability for high variations of MLSS, tubular type membranes were selected. Polysulfone group membranes and polyamide group membranes were tested. The crossflow operation mode was adapted, because membrane fouling problems could be easily controlled by adjusting the linear velocity. Due to the high concentration of the raw water, polyamide group membranes were originally expected to achieve two times higher permeable fluxes. However, difference was only approximately $20l/m^2{\cdot}h$ at $3kgf/cm^2$. It might be resulted from the high concentration of organic materials in the effluent of the RBC process. For the quality of the treated water, polyamide group membranes were slightly less effective. It might be resulted from the fact that polysulfone group membranes had more adsorptive capacities for the organic materials. The effects of temperature on the permeable flux were found to be significant. Despite of the irregular injection of raw water, the quality of the treated water was kept stable.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.351-364
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• 2016

In recent decades, many researchers have tried to improve desalination performances of polyamide (PA) thin-film composite membranes (TFCs) by incorporating nanomaterials into a selective PA layer. This review focuses on PA-based nanocomposite membranes with high performances for energy-effective desalination in reverse osmosis. Carbon based nanomaterial (e.g., graphene oxide (GO), carbon nanotubes (CNT)) and/or other nanoparticles (e.g., zeolite, silica and etc.,) were applied to overcome the trade-off correlation between water permeability and salt rejection of current polymeric desalination membranes. Here, this brief review will discuss current studies of PA-based nanocomposite membranes with enhanced separation characteristics and provide the future research direction to achieve further improved desalination performances.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.323-336
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• 2017

The main challenge in many applications of acetic acid is acid dehydration and its recovery from wastewater streams. Therefore, the performance of polyamide thin film composite is evaluated to separate acetic acid from water. To reach this goal, the formation of polyamide layer on polysulfone support membrane was investigated via interfacial polymerization (IP) of meta-phenylenediamine (MPD) in water with trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in hexane. Also, the effect of synthesis conditions, such as concentration of monomers and curing temperature on separation of acetic acid from water were investigated by reverse osmosis process. Moreover, the separation mechanism was discussed. The solute permeation was carried out under applied pressure of 5 bar at $25^{\circ}C$. Surface properties of TFC membrane were characterized by ATR-FTIR, SEM and AFM. The performance test indicated that 3.5 wt% of MPD, 0.35 wt% of TMC and curing temperature of $75^{\circ}C$ are the optimum conditions. Moreover, the permeate flux was $4.3{\frac{L}{m^2\;h}}$ and acetic acid rejection was about 43% at these conditions.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.451-460
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• 2019

Thin film composite membranes incorporated with nano-sized hydrophilic zeolite -A were successfully prepared via interfacial polymerization (IP) on porous blend PES/PAN support for water desalination. The thin film nanocomposite membranes were characterized by SEM, contact angle and performance test with 7000 ppm NaCl solution at 7bar. The results showed that the optimum zeolite loading amount was determined to be 0.1wt% with permeate flux 29LMH.NaCl rejection was improved from 69% to 92% compared to the pristine polyamide membrane where the modified PA surface was more selective than that of the pristine PA. In addition, there was no significant change in the permeate flux of the thin film nanocomposite membrane compared with that of the pristine PA in spite of the formation of the dense polyamide layer. The stability of the polyamide layer was investigated for 15 days and the optimized membrane presented the highest durability and stability.