A novel thin film nanocomposite reverse osmosis membrane with superior anti-organic fouling affinity for water desalination

In this work, titanate nanotubes (TNTs) were self-synthesized and amino functionalized to produce titanate nanotubes (NH2-TNTs) for thin film nanocomposite (TFN) reverse osmosis (RO) membrane fabrication. The novel RO membranes were fabricated by embedding NH2-TNTs of different quantities into polyamide (PA) layer. The nanotubular morphology of NH2-TNTs was studied using TEM while FTIR was employed to confirm the reaction of TNTs with [1-(2-amino-ethyl)-3-aminopropyl] trimethoxysilane. The effect of NH2-TNTs on the PA layer of TFN with respect to surface morphology, separation performance and antifouling properties was thoroughly investigated and discussed. The presence of NH2-TNTs in PA layer was verified using XPS while the “leaf-like” outgrowth morphology of PA layer was observed using FESEM. Results showed that the TFN membrane with 0.05% NH2-TNTs embedded was the most promising membrane as it exhibited 93% higher water flux than the control thin film composite (TFC) membrane, without compensating NaCl rejection. In terms of organic fouling tendency, the TFN0.05 membrane also showed higher tolerance compared to the control membrane during RO process. Furthermore, as high as 94% of the water flux of TFN0.05 was able to retrieve by a simple water rinse process, which suggests that organic fouling in TFN0.05 is highly reversible.