Thin Film Nanofibrous Composite Membrane for Dead-End Seawater Desalination

The aim of the study was to prepare a thin film nanofibrous composite membrane utilized for nanofiltration technologies. The composite membrane consists of a three-layer system including a nonwoven part as the supporting material, a nanofibrous scaffold as the porous surface, and an active layer. The nonwoven part and the nanofibrous scaffold were laminated together to improve the mechanical properties of the complete membrane. Active layer formations were done successfully via interfacial polymerization. A filtration test was carried out using solutions of MgSO4, NaCl, Na2SO4, CaCl2, and real seawater using the dead-end filtration method. The results indicated that the piperazine-based membrane exhibited higher rejection of divalent salt ions (>98%) with high flux. In addition, the m-phenylenediamine-based membrane exhibited higher rejection of divalent and monovalent salt ions (>98% divalent and >96% monovalent) with reasonable flux. The desalination of real seawater results showed that thin film nanofibrous composite membranes were able to retain 98% of salt ions from highly saline seawater without showing any fouling. The electrospun nanofibrous materials proved to be an alternative functional supporting material instead of the polymeric phase-inverted support layer in liquid filtration.