Fabrication of pervaporation desalination membranes with excellent chemical resistance for chemical washing.

Pervaporation membranes have exhibited great potential for desalinating brine solutions. However, the flux recovery after membrane washing and the membrane's resistance to chemical cleaning reagents were barely studied. Our group has reported excellent desalination properties of PVA based pervaporation membranes. Nevertheless, the membranes were damaged during chemical cleaning due to the poor chlorine resistance of PVA. In this study, the more active 1, 2-diol units of PVA were removed by sodium periodate treatment. And then, the modified PVA was crosslinked by FS-3100, a fluorocarbon based crosslinker, to improve its hydrostability and chlorine resistance. The FS-3100 crosslinked composite (PVA-FS/PVDF) showed a water flux of 34 ± 1 kg m−2 h−1 with a NaCl rejection of 99.93% when desalinated a 35000 ppm NaCl solution at 70 °C. Salt rejections were maintained after soaking in 2000 ppm NaClO, acid (pH = 2), and alkali (pH = 12) solutions for 168, 180, and 180 h, respectively. A long term desalination experiment was carried out using Tween 20 and HA as foulants. The water fluxes could be recovered to 100% after chemical washing without losing salt rejections, indicating an excellent long term operation stability of the FS-3100 crosslinked PV membranes. PVA with superior chemical resistance is obtained by crosslinked with fluorocarbon containing chemical. Image 1 • 1, 2-diols of PVA were removed to improve chlorine resistance. • The PVA was further crosslinked by FS-3100. • The crosslined PVA membrane had superior tolerance to acid, alkali, and chlorine. • Membrane flux could be recovered 100% after chemical washing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]