Publication: Fabrication of superhydrophobic microsphere electrospun membrane through template printing technique to enhance membrane distillation for aquaculture wastewater treatment
| datacite.subject.fos | oecd::Engineering and technology::Chemical engineering | |
| dc.contributor.author | Zhou Lei | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-05-15T02:44:05Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-05-15T02:44:05Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2023-05-01 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the promising technologies for desalination and wastewater treatment. Electrospinning membranes (EMs) is frequently used in MD applications because it has an interconnected pores structure to facilitate the transport of water vapor, which can increase the permeation flux of MD. Aquaculture wastewater contains a large amount of inorganic and organic compounds, which can cause wetting and fouling of MD membrane. The superhydrophobic membrane can reduce the wettability of the membrane and maintain a long-term stable desalination process during MD. In this work, superhydrophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) electrospun membranes were fabricated by template printing technique to construct hierarchical microtextures on membrane surfaces. When the injection rate was 1.0 mL/h and the solvent weight ratio of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and tetrahydrofuran (THF) was 1:1, the membrane exhibited optimal printed microtextures when electrospun at the temperature of 30±2 ℃ and the relative humidity of 70±5 %. The microtexture template structure provides hierarchical micro-and nano-roughness on the membrane surface. The optimal membrane exhibits superhydrophobicity, with a static contact angle of 158° and a sliding angle of 8.5°. In the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) for treating high saline water and aquaculture wastewater, the initial permeation fluxes of the optimal membrane were as high as 40.76 kg·m-2·h-1 and 33.45 kg·m-2·h-1, which were 161% and 174% higher than the non-printed membrane. To further enhance the superhydrophobicity of the templated PVDF-HFP membrane, microsphere beads were integrated in the membrane matrix. The fabricated membrane exhibited interconnected microspherenanofiber structure with hierarchical micro-nano roughness. Due to the intrinsic microspheres on the nanofibers, the water contact angle of all microsphere/nanofiber membranes were higher than 150°. The optimal membrane exhibited superhydrophobicity, with a static contact angle of 157° and a low sliding angle of 6.4°. In DCMD, the optimal membrane shows a high permeation flux of 38.8 kg·m- 2·h-1 and a salt rejection of 99.99% in separating high saline water as well as a permeate flux of 32.68 kg·m-2·h-1 and a salt rejection of 99.98% in treating aquaculture wastewater. In addition, the microsphere-nanofiber membrane also exhibited a stable separation process and excellent anti-fouling for 72-hours longterm DCMD. Overall, the surface microtexture printed superhydrophobic membrane show great potential in practical desalination applications. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://erepo.usm.my/handle/123456789/21636 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.title | Fabrication of superhydrophobic microsphere electrospun membrane through template printing technique to enhance membrane distillation for aquaculture wastewater treatment | |
| dc.type | Resource Types::text::thesis::doctoral thesis | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oairecerif.author.affiliation | Universiti Sains Malaysia |