Tailoring the Affinity of Organosilica Membranes by Introducing Polarizable Ethenylene Bridges and Aqueous Ozone Modification

Bis(triethoxysilyl)ethylene (BTESEthy) was used as a novel precursor to develop a microporous organosilica membrane via the sol gel technique. Water sorption measurements confirmed that ethenylene-bridged BTESEthy networks had a higher affinity for water than that of ethane-bridged organosihca materials. High permeance of CO2 with high CO2/N-2 selectivity was explained relative to the strong CO2 adsorption on the network with pi-bond electrons. The introduction of polarizable and rigid ethenylene bridges in the network structure led to improved water permeability and high NaCl rejection (>98.5%) in reverse osmosis (RO). Moreover, the aqueous ozone modification promoted significant improvement in the water permeability of the membrane. After 60 mm of ozone exposure, the water permeability reached 1.1 X 10(-12) m(3)/(m(2) s Pa), which is close to that of a commercial seawater RO membrane. Meanwhile, molecular weight cutoff measurements indicated a gradual increase in the effective pore size with ozone modification, which may present new options for fine-tuning of membrane pore sizes.