Fouling and rejection behavior of carbon nanotube membranes

CATEGORY: DESALINATION
Desalination, Available online 28 October 2013, In Press, Corrected Proof
Fouling and rejection behavior of carbon nanotube membranes
Seung-Min Park (a), Jungwoo Jung (a), Sangho Lee (a), Youngbin Baek (b), Jeyong Yoon (b), Dong Kyun Seo (c), Yong Hyup Kim (c)
a Department of Civil And Environment Engineering, Kookmin University Jeongneung-gil 77, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-702, Republic of Korea
b School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, Daehak-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea
c School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Daehak-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea
Abstract
Nanostructure membranes made of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VA-CNT) exhibit high water permeability. Unfortunately, membrane fouling is a critical issue in such membranes. Researchers have focused on understanding fouling of VA-CNT membranes. They prepared the membranes using the thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique.
Surface modification by graft-polymerization of methacrylic acid (MA) employed to retard membrane fouling, as well as to improve solute rejection. They applied the resistance-in-series model to characterize the properties of fouling layers. They used BSA (bovine serum albumin) as the model foulant. Results indicated that the VA-CNT membranes had higher fouling propensity than polymeric membranes. After surface modification, however, irreversible fouling was significantly reduced in the VA-CNT membranes. Researchers attribute this to an increase in hydrophilicity and surface charge.
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