Performance of surface modification of polyvinylidene fluoride hollow fiber membrane in membrane distillation

Abstract

Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the novel separation methods used in water and wastewater treatment processes. MD is a thermal driven process which has the potential to be integrated with renewable energy source and can be operated at very low pressure. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is a hydrophobic polymeric material which is commonly used to prepare MD membrane. In this study, surface modifying macromolecule (SMM) was added as additive into PVDF dope solution and then the hollow fiber membrane was prepared using phase inversion process. The membrane was characterized with respect to morphology and permeates flux at different temperatures. The results revealed that the PVDF membrane blended with SMM exhibited higher permeate flux than PVDF neat membrane did, mainly due to the better pore size distribution and thinner skin layer. This finding indicated the role of SMM in modifying the properties of PVDF membrane for MD process.