Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2021, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (3): 470-479.doi: 10.1007/s40242-021-1039-0

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Superhydrophobized Polyacrylonitrile/Hierarchicall-FeOOH Nanofibrous Membrane for High-salinity Water Treatment in Membrane Distillation

XIANG Huilin1, ZHONG Lingling1, REN Yongqing4, LIU Dongmei1, ZHU Zhigao3, XU Ying2, WANG Yu2, WANG Wei1   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment(SKLUWRE), School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, P. R. China;
    2. School of Materials Science and Environment, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, P. R. China;
    3. Key Laboratory of New Membrane Materials, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, School of Environment and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, P. R. China;
    4. Daqing Petroleum Equipment Group, Daqing 163311, P. R. China
  • Received:2021-01-29 Revised:2021-04-01 Online:2021-06-01 Published:2021-05-31
  • Contact: WANG Yu, WANG Wei E-mail:wangyu@zzu.edu.cn;wangweirs@hit.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.51873047), the Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment in HIT of China(No.2019DX10) and the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province, China(No.YQ2020B003).

Abstract: Water flux and hydrophobic durability play important roles in membrane distillation(MD) applications. Compared with the method of adsorbing nanoparticles by electrostatic adsorption, the surface roughness constructed by chemical bonding is more conducive to the performance of membrane. This paper reports a facile approach to fabricating superhydrophobic fluoroalkyl silane/polydimethylsiloxane@FeOOH@stabilized polyacrylonitrile(FAS/PDMS@FeOOH@SPAN) nanofibrous membrane (NFM) with outstanding hierarchical structures, aiming to achieve efficient and stable performance in MD. Electrospun polyacrylonitrile(PAN) membrane after peroxidation was chosen as the base membrane, followed by in-situ synthesis of iron oxyhydroxide and liquid-phase silanization. We tested the characteristics of FAS/PDMS@FeOOH@SPAN NFM in each preparation stage and its performance in direct contact membrane distillation(DCMD). The chemical bond between iron oxyhydroxide and the membrane is stronger, making the rough structure steady and dense. The FAS/PDMS@FeOOH@SPAN NFM exhibited a water contact angle of 155.4° and excellent hydrophobicity towards different pollutants. Besides, it showed satisfied properties with a water flux of 24.7 L·m-2·h-1, a high salts rejection of ca. 100% and an extended-term stability in DCMD using hypersaline water(10%, mass ratio). It is believed that this novel study proposes a universal and efficient method to fabricate a superhydrophobic surface and has great potential for high-salinity wastewater treatment in MD.

Key words: Superhydrophobic membrane, Polyacrylonitrile, Membrane distillation, High-salinity water, Electrospinning