Modification of ZIF-8 crystal and synthesis of hydrophobic membrane for improving the performance of PVDF nanocomposite membrane in membrane distillation

The PVDF polymeric membrane incorporated with hydrophobic synthesized additives is utilized for Membrane distillation (MD) process to improve porosity and performance of membrane . In this work, at first we synthesized ZnO nanoparticle and then it was modified with silane coupling agent (n-octyltriethoxysilane) to use it for modification of ZIF-8 crystal, after that we prepared hydrophobic and porous membrane with ZIF-8 crystal and modified ZnO nanoparticle. In particular, the influence feed temperature was investigated during the procedure sea water (12%). The hydrophobic modified membranes show higher permeate flux than pure PVDF membrane in different feed temperature. After modification with hydrophobic nanoparticles by two steps, porosity and contact angle were increased from 50.45% to 62.46%,73.77% and 52.97 to 67.62 and 69.96 , respectively. Salt rejection of various membranes in different temperature was obtained up to 92%. The synthesized nanoparticle, crystal and prepared membranes were characterized by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), FTIR, Contact Angle and AFM.

Keywords:

Membrane Distillation , Hydrophobic Membrane , ZIF-8 crystal , ZnO nanopartic