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Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation

Insufficient mechanical strength and wide pore size distribution of nanofibrous membranes are the key hindrances for their concrete applications in membrane distillation. In this work, various post-treatment methods such as dilute solvent welding, vapor welding, and cold-/hot-pressing processes were...

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Autores principales: Sallakhniknezhad, Reza, Khorsi, Manijeh, Niknejad, Ali Sallakh, Bazgir, Saeed, Kargari, Ali, Sazegar, Mohsen, Rasouli, Mohsen, Chae, Soryong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8705235/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34940469
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/membranes11120969
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author Sallakhniknezhad, Reza
Khorsi, Manijeh
Niknejad, Ali Sallakh
Bazgir, Saeed
Kargari, Ali
Sazegar, Mohsen
Rasouli, Mohsen
Chae, Soryong
author_facet Sallakhniknezhad, Reza
Khorsi, Manijeh
Niknejad, Ali Sallakh
Bazgir, Saeed
Kargari, Ali
Sazegar, Mohsen
Rasouli, Mohsen
Chae, Soryong
author_sort Sallakhniknezhad, Reza
collection PubMed
description Insufficient mechanical strength and wide pore size distribution of nanofibrous membranes are the key hindrances for their concrete applications in membrane distillation. In this work, various post-treatment methods such as dilute solvent welding, vapor welding, and cold-/hot-pressing processes were used to enhance the physical properties of styrene–acrylonitrile (SAN) nanofiber membranes fabricated by the modified electrospinning process. The effects of injection rate of welding solution and a working distance during the welding process with air-assisted spraying on characteristics of SAN nanofiber membranes were investigated. The welding process was made less time-consuming by optimizing system parameters of the electroblowing process to simultaneously exploit residual solvents of fibers and hot solvent vapor to reduce exposure time. As a result, the welded SAN membranes showed considerable enhancement in mechanical robustness and membrane integrity with a negligible reduction in surface hydrophobicity. The hot-pressed SAN membranes obtained the highest mechanical strength and smallest mean pore size. The modified SAN membranes were used for the desalination of synthetic seawater in a direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). As a result, it was found that the modified SAN membranes performed well (>99.9% removal of salts) for desalination of synthetic seawater (35 g/L NaCl) during 30 h operation without membrane wetting. The cold-/hot-pressing processes were able to improve mechanical strength and boost liquid entry pressure (LEP) of water. In contrast, the welding processes were preferred to increase membrane flexibility and permeation.
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spelling pubmed-87052352021-12-25 Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation Sallakhniknezhad, Reza Khorsi, Manijeh Niknejad, Ali Sallakh Bazgir, Saeed Kargari, Ali Sazegar, Mohsen Rasouli, Mohsen Chae, Soryong Membranes (Basel) Article Insufficient mechanical strength and wide pore size distribution of nanofibrous membranes are the key hindrances for their concrete applications in membrane distillation. In this work, various post-treatment methods such as dilute solvent welding, vapor welding, and cold-/hot-pressing processes were used to enhance the physical properties of styrene–acrylonitrile (SAN) nanofiber membranes fabricated by the modified electrospinning process. The effects of injection rate of welding solution and a working distance during the welding process with air-assisted spraying on characteristics of SAN nanofiber membranes were investigated. The welding process was made less time-consuming by optimizing system parameters of the electroblowing process to simultaneously exploit residual solvents of fibers and hot solvent vapor to reduce exposure time. As a result, the welded SAN membranes showed considerable enhancement in mechanical robustness and membrane integrity with a negligible reduction in surface hydrophobicity. The hot-pressed SAN membranes obtained the highest mechanical strength and smallest mean pore size. The modified SAN membranes were used for the desalination of synthetic seawater in a direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). As a result, it was found that the modified SAN membranes performed well (>99.9% removal of salts) for desalination of synthetic seawater (35 g/L NaCl) during 30 h operation without membrane wetting. The cold-/hot-pressing processes were able to improve mechanical strength and boost liquid entry pressure (LEP) of water. In contrast, the welding processes were preferred to increase membrane flexibility and permeation. MDPI 2021-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8705235/ /pubmed/34940469 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/membranes11120969 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sallakhniknezhad, Reza
Khorsi, Manijeh
Niknejad, Ali Sallakh
Bazgir, Saeed
Kargari, Ali
Sazegar, Mohsen
Rasouli, Mohsen
Chae, Soryong
Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation
title Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation
title_full Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation
title_fullStr Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation
title_full_unstemmed Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation
title_short Enhancement of Physical Characteristics of Styrene–Acrylonitrile Nanofiber Membranes Using Various Post-Treatments for Membrane Distillation
title_sort enhancement of physical characteristics of styrene–acrylonitrile nanofiber membranes using various post-treatments for membrane distillation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8705235/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34940469
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/membranes11120969
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