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Preparation and properties of organic solvent reverse osmosis membrane
Authors： YANG Qian, PENG Yu, WANG Enlin, SUN Yuqi, WANG Bing, GAO Xueli, SU Baowei
Units： College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology (Ministry of Education), Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China
KeyWords： organic solvent reverse osmosis membrane; interfacial polymerization; organic solvent; 1-methylimidazole
ClassificationCode：TQ028.8
year,volume(issue):pagination： 2025,45(4):1-14

Abstract：
The energy consumption of organic solvent separation and purification processes based on phase transition, such as distillation, accounts for about 80% of the total separation energy consumption. There is an urgent need to develop a green and efficient organic solvent separation technology. Organic solvent reverse osmosis (OSRO) technology is an emerging low-energy, phase-change-free membrane separation technology for the separation of organic solvent systems. However, the current OSRO membranes still suffer from low solvent permeability, which greatly hinders their industrial application. In this work, 1-methylimidazole was used as additive in the aqueous monomer solution to manipulate the interfacial polymerization process on crosslinked polyimide substrate membrane surface so as to construct a kind of OSRO membrane with better permeability to organic solvent. The results showed that  for the OSRO membrane  TFC1-MI-0.3 prepared under optimal conditions,  the pure solvent permeate fluxes   were 28.9, 15.8 and 4.6 kg/(m2·h) for the three pure solvents (methanol, acetonitrile and ethanol) at 3.0 MPa, respectively. The rejection of MTBE (molecular weight 88) in 5% MTBE/methanol solution and n-hexane in 5% n-hexane (molecular weight 86)/methanol solution were about  92%. The methanol concentration of the permeates reached 99.5%, which could achieve the separation of binary organic mixed systems with azeotropic characteristics. The methanol mass permeation fluxes of TFC1MI0.3 reached 19.4 and 20.1 kg/(m2·h), respectively, for the two solutions, which were approximately doubled that of the baseline OSRO membrane without 1-methylimidazole addition during the interfacial polymerization process. The molecular weight cut-off of TFC1MI0.3 in ethanol solution was about 121. After immersing TFC1-MI-0.3 in various organic solvents such as hydrocarbons, alcohols, esters and ketones for 30 days, the rejection of the membrane for NaCl varied less than 2%, which demonstrated a good application prospect.
 

Funds：
国家自然科学基金项目（22078310）

AuthorIntro：
杨倩（2000-），女，山东菏泽人，硕士研究生，研究方向为有机溶剂反渗透膜分离技术

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