Activated carbon-doped polystyrene fibers for direct contact membrane desalination

Membranes for direct contact membrane distillation were produced from electrospun polystyrene microfibers doped with activated carbon. The addition of activated carbon reduced the hydrophobicity of the fibers. Therefore, desalination membranes were fabricated in a multi-layer construction with undoped polystyrene as the outer layers and activated carbon-doped polystyrene as an inner layer. Membranes including activated carbon-doped layers showed a 20x greater specific surface area as compared to undoped membranes. The vapor flux of the membranes containing layers doped with activated carbon (6.3 +/- 0.7 kg/m(2)/h) was not statistically different from that with an all polystyrene construction (8.1 +/- 1.2 kg/m(2)/h). The membranes retained their desalination capabilities despite the addition of the activated carbon.