Kinetic aspects of salinity stability of layer-by-layer polyelectrolyte nanofiltration membranes: Impact of soaking time, types of ions and crosslinking

Jiarui Chen, Rongrong He, Hao Chen, Binjie Hu, Begum Tokay, Yue biao Zhang, Tao He

Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Recent discovery of very high selectivity of Layer-by-Layer (LBL) nanofiltration (NF) membranes for mono/bivalent ions has attracted significant attention, especially for extraction of lithium from salt lake brines. Besides the exceptionally high selectivity, the salinity stability in highly saline solutions (HSS) that often occurred during NF has been largely neglected. Intuitively, because the LBL membranes are assembled in a saline background solution, the assembly disassembles in highly saline environments. To verify above argument, we reported here a comprehensive study on the performance of polystyrene sulfonate (PSS)/poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) and PSS/poly(allylamine) hydrochloride (PAH) LBL NF membranes in HSS by short/long term immersion and dynamic filtration. Greater binding strength of (PSS/PAH)2.5 corresponded to better salinity stability than (PSS/PDADMAC)2.5. Adsorption bridging of divalent Mg2+ with PSS altered PSS conformation and narrowing the pore size distribution. Compared to static immersion, dynamic filtration accelerated the loss of PEs from (PSS/PAH)2.5 at cLiCl = 2 mol/L, but membrane stability was improved by chemical crosslinking. This research highlighted the kinetic aspects in salinity stability and the chemical-physical behavior of polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) in HSS. The results offer valuable insights for development of LBL NF membranes for ion separation and resource recovery.

Original languageEnglish
Article number123087
JournalJournal of Membrane Science
Volume709
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jul 2024

Keywords

  • Annealing
  • Ion bridging
  • Layer-by-layer self-assembly
  • Nanofiltration membrane
  • Salinity stability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Filtration and Separation
  • General Materials Science
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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