Recently, many efforts to enhance separation performance of the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes have been made. Among them, the post treatment with organic solvent, so called solvent activation, has been recognized as an effective method to improve membrane performance. However, solvent activation enhances water flux along with the loss of NaCl rejection. Furthermore, there have been no clear mechanisms and reliable criteria of the solvent activation effects. In this study, we demonstrate that a new type of organic solvent, benzyl alcohol, can effectively activate the RO membrane to significantly enhance water permeation without deteriorating NaCl. Based on this results, we elucidate the underlying solvent activation mechanism and propose a reliable indicator of the solvent activation effect.

We report on the fabrication of a high performance reverse osmosis membrane based on a hydrophilic polyacrylonitrile support via an aromatic solvent-assisted interfacial polymerization process. The use of aromatic solvent (toluene or xylene) produced the membranes with unprecedentedly high NaCl rejection (~99.9%) and superior water flux, outperforming both the control membrane prepared using a conventional aliphatic solvent (n-hexane) and commercial membranes. The membranes fabricated using toluene or xylene had roof-like structures covering a thin and highly dense polyamide (PA) layer, which was induced by enhanced amine diffusion and the extended miscible layer resulting from the increased miscibility of aromatic solvent with water. The high performance of the membranes is attributed to thin and highly cross-linked basal PA layer.

Growing demands for reducing energy consumption have raised interest to design advanced materials for thin film composite (TFC) desalination membranes with high permselectivity and low fouling. Here, we synthesized a star-shaped polymer as a new building block material, which can be assembled into selective layer of the TFC membrane via a facile interfacial polymerization (IP). Star polymer with compact globular structure and high density amine functional groups enabled to fabricate higher permselectivity and lower fouling propensity membrane compared to commercial membranes. In addition, star polymer assembled TFC membrane can function as either nanofiltration or reverse osmosis membrane by simply adjusting IP process conditions, which cannot feasible in conventional materials, demonstrating remarkable versatility of our star polymer.

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes were fabricated using a new class of UV-curable PDMS (UV-PDMS) and conventional heat-curable PDMS (Heat-PDMS) materials for n-butanol recovery. In addition, mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) were prepared using silicalite-1 particles as a additive to improve the recovery efficiency of n-butanol. To understand the structure-performance relationship, the surface/cross-sectional morphology and roughness of the PDMS membranes and MMMs were characterized using SEM and AFM, respectively. Consequently, when 20 % of silicalite-1 particles was loaded, the UV-curable MMM exhibited 58 % increased flux with similar separation factor compared to the heat-curable MMM, which is attributed to enlarged the effective membrane surface area resulting from its unique morphology.