Triple-Layer Nanofiber Membranes for Treating High Salinity Brines Using Direct Contact Membrane Distillation

Mustafa Al-Furaiji; Jason T Arena; Jian Ren; Nieck Benes; Arian Nijmeijer; Jeffrey R McCutcheon

doi:10.3390/membranes9050060

Triple-Layer Nanofiber Membranes for Treating High Salinity Brines Using Direct Contact Membrane Distillation

Membranes (Basel). 2019 May 6;9(5):60. doi: 10.3390/membranes9050060.

Authors

Mustafa Al-Furaiji^{1

2}, Jason T Arena³, Jian Ren⁴, Nieck Benes⁵, Arian Nijmeijer⁶, Jeffrey R McCutcheon⁷

Affiliations

¹ Environment and Water Directorate, Ministry of Science and Technology, Baghdad 10001, Iraq. alfuraiji79@gmail.com.
² Inorganic Membranes, Faculty of Science and Technology, Mesa+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. alfuraiji79@gmail.com.
³ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Connecticut, 191 Auditorium Rd. Unit 3222, Storrs, CT 06269-3222, USA. jta08003@uconn.edu.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Connecticut, 191 Auditorium Rd. Unit 3222, Storrs, CT 06269-3222, USA. jian.ren@uconn.edu.
⁵ Films in Fluids, Faculty of Science and Technology, Mesa+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. n.e.benes@utwente.nl.
⁶ Inorganic Membranes, Faculty of Science and Technology, Mesa+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. a.nijmeijer@utwente.nl.
⁷ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Connecticut, 191 Auditorium Rd. Unit 3222, Storrs, CT 06269-3222, USA. jeffrey.mccutcheon@uconn.edu.

Abstract

A composite, three-layered membrane for membrane distillation was prepared from electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers supported by commercial polyethersulfone (PES) nanofiber based nonwoven from E.I. duPont de Nemours company (DuPont). The membranes were tested in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) using a 5.0 M sodium chloride brine as a feed solution. The triple layer membrane combines the hydrophobicity of PVDF and the robustness of the PES. The triple layer membrane demonstrated excellent performance in DCMD (i.e., relatively high water flux compared to the commercial PVDF membrane and a complete salt rejection of the brine) with mechanical properties imparted by the PES layer. This work is the first to demonstrate the use of a commercially produced nanofiber nonwoven for membrane distillation.

Keywords: PES; PVDF; highly concentrated solutions; membrane distillation; triple layer composite membrane.