Journal of Membrane Science, Vol.550, 502-509, 2018
Fabrication of phenolic resin based desalting membrane with ordered mesostructure and excellent chlorine resistance
A novel ordered cubic mesostructured phenolic resin (PR)/F127 desalting membrane was fabricated by a spincoating approach via the self-assembly of PR oligomer and Pluronic F127 triblock copolymer template on a polyacrylonitrile (PAN) ultrafiltration substrate. It has a thin PR/F127 desalting active layer (30 nm) and negatively charged membrane surface, and It can reject 83.7% potassium sulphate under 2 g/L feed solution and 2.4 MPa operating pressure. The rejection to potassium citrate can be elevated to 95.6%, and corresponding permeate flux is 11.0 L/m(2) h, suggesting good separation capability to multivalent-anion salts. Moreover, it was found that this membrane has a good selective passage for non-charged organic species. Additionally, after the membrane was partially carbonized by adding sulphuric acid, the permeate flux can be dramatically improved to 35.9 L/m(2) h with a slight potassium citrate rejection decrease (85.4%). Furthermore, the potassium citrate rejection of the membrane can be still kept at a high level (91.7%) after being treated for 6 h in NaClO aqueous solution (pH 4), indicating excellent chlorine resistance performance. This membrane also shows good resistance to acid and alkaline solutions (pH 3-9). The negatively charged membrane surface and F127 templated dense mesostructure play a key role for improving the separation capability of the PR/F127 membrane. This membrane material should have a good application prospect in multi-component separation and reclamation of oxidative waste water.