Journal
DESALINATION
Volume 517, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.desal.2021.115257
Keywords
Reverse osmosis; Ionic liquids; Electrical neutrality; Ionic solvation; Antifouling
Categories
Funding
- National Key Research and Development Project of China [2020YFC1909401]
- Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province [LZ20B060001]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [21961160742]
- R&D Project of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps [2018AA003]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
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This study enhanced the antifouling property of polyamide reverse osmosis membranes by tethering the aminated imidazolium cation of ionic liquids onto the membrane surface, resulting in balanced charge, strong hydrophilicity, low protein adsorption, and excellent antifouling behavior. The integration of high performance ionic liquids and mild conditions is expected to expand the application of superb antifouling materials in various biofouling areas.
The electrical neutrality of ionic liquids (ILs) was exploited to enhance the antifouling property of polyamide (PA) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in this work. We solely tethered the aminated imidazolium cation of ILs [AVIM] Br onto the top-surface of PA RO membranes via mild amidation. The molecular simulation results confirmed that the tethered imidazolium cation and the dissociated bromine anion were stably existed in the form of ion pairs on PA RO membrane surface. In virtue of the electrical neutrality of these ion pairs, the ionicsolvation induced hydration layer formed in ILs above the modified membrane surface was thick and evenly distributed, similar to that formed in conventionally electroneutral zwitterion antifouling materials. Thereby, the cation-tethered membrane surface intuitively achieved balanced charge and strong hydrophilicity, and stably exhibited low protein adsorption and excellent antifouling behaviors to diverse foulants, even when the imidazolium cation was paired with anions of different molecular size. Meanwhile, the typical ridge-and-valley surface morphology for PA RO membrane was well preserved due to the mild modification condition, and thereby harvested satisfactory separation performance. The integration of high performance, abundant ILs and mild conditions was expected to expand the application of superb antifouling materials in a variety of biofouling areas.
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