Issue 44, 2015

A facile route to enhance the water flux of a thin-film composite reverse osmosis membrane: incorporating thickness-controlled graphene oxide into a highly porous support layer

Abstract

In this study, we demonstrated that a reduction in solely the concentration of the polymer solution for preparation of the support layer effectively enhances the water flux of a thin-film composite (TFC) reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. However, a decrease in the polymer concentration caused the sub-surface structure of the support layer to become too porous, which unavoidably weakened the mechanical strength of the support layer. To overcome the problem, we prepared a highly porous support layer with improved mechanical strength by incorporating graphene oxide (GO) platelets. The thickness of the GO platelets was controlled by adjusting the mechanical energy input per volume of the precursor solution. We confirmed that well-exfoliated GO platelets (mean thickness: about 1.5 nm) are more effective in enhancing the mechanical properties of the support layer. The TFC RO membrane made of the GO composite support layer had almost 1.6 to 4 times higher water flux with comparable salt rejection compared to both the current upper bounds of the RO membranes prepared by modification of the active layer and commercial RO membranes.

Graphical abstract: A facile route to enhance the water flux of a thin-film composite reverse osmosis membrane: incorporating thickness-controlled graphene oxide into a highly porous support layer

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
04 Jun 2015
Accepted
11 Aug 2015
First published
12 Aug 2015

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015,3, 22053-22060

Author version available

A facile route to enhance the water flux of a thin-film composite reverse osmosis membrane: incorporating thickness-controlled graphene oxide into a highly porous support layer

J. Lee, J. H. Jang, H. Chae, S. H. Lee, C. Lee, P. Park, Y. Won and I. Kim, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 22053 DOI: 10.1039/C5TA04042F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements