Insights into the impact of polydopamine modification on permeability and anti-fouling performance of forward osmosis membrane

Yi Yang; Chunyang Song; Pengcheng Wang; Xinfei Fan; Yuanlu Xu; Guanming Dong; Zhijian Liu; Zonglin Pan; Yongxin Song; Chengwen Song

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132744

Insights into the impact of polydopamine modification on permeability and anti-fouling performance of forward osmosis membrane

Chemosphere. 2022 Mar;291(Pt 1):132744. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132744. Epub 2021 Oct 29.

Authors

Yi Yang¹, Chunyang Song¹, Pengcheng Wang², Xinfei Fan³, Yuanlu Xu¹, Guanming Dong¹, Zhijian Liu⁴, Zonglin Pan¹, Yongxin Song⁴, Chengwen Song⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, 1 Linghai Road, Dalian, 116026, China.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX, 77204, USA.
³ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, 1 Linghai Road, Dalian, 116026, China. Electronic address: fxf0909@dlmu.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China.
⁵ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, 1 Linghai Road, Dalian, 116026, China. Electronic address: chengwensong@dlmu.edu.cn.

PMID: 34743795
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.132744

Abstract

Forward osmosis (FO) has drawn wide attention as a promising method to address world-wide water crisis due to the advantages of low-energy consumption and easy separation operation. Unfortunately, the trade-off between permeability and selectivity as well as membrane fouling hindered the application of forward osmosis. Surface modification is a feasible method to address these issues. However, there is a lack of systematic evaluation about the effect of modification position on FO performance due to the asymmetric structure of thin film composite (TFC) FO membrane. To provide new insights into the design of FO membrane with satisfied permeability and fouling resistance, novel TFC FO membranes were fabricated by introducing polydopamine (PDA) on the support layer (TFC-I) or active layer (TFC-S), respectively. The surface morphology, chemical composition and wettability of the fabricated membrane were studied. It was found that the surface wettability of the modified membrane was improved greatly compared to pristine TFC membrane (TFC-C). Moreover, TFC-S membrane displayed a rougher surface than that of TFC-I membrane. As a result, a superior TFC-S membrane with a water flux of 60.95 ± 3.15 L m^-2h^-1 in AL-DS mode was obtained, which was 72.61% and 17.87% higher than that of TFC-C and TFC-I membrane, respectively. In addition, the TFC-S membrane also presented an excellent fouling resistance and membrane regeneration performance during the three organic fouling cycle experiments. The results indicated that the introduction of PDA as a surface coating for TFC membranes modification guaranteed the high-performance and fouling resistance. Especially, the PDA coating on the support layer surface resulted in an enhancement in permeability, while both the permeability and anti-fouling performance were significantly improved with the PDA coating on the polyamide active layer surface. This study provides new insights into the development of modification TFC-FO membranes for practical applications in water treatment.

Keywords: Anti-fouling; Forward osmosis (FO); Polydopamine (PDA) coating; Position; Thin film composite (TFC) membrane.

MeSH terms

Biofouling* / prevention & control
Indoles
Membranes, Artificial
Osmosis
Permeability
Polymers
Water Purification*

Substances

Indoles
Membranes, Artificial
Polymers
polydopamine