The nanoscale structure of composite polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes was investigated by transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The study demonstrated that the polymer density and charge are distributed across the active polyamide layer in a highly nonuniform fashion. The polyamide films appear to be built of a negatively charged outer layer sitting on top of an inner layer possessing a small positive charge. This picture appears to be fairly general for all types of composite membranes and seems to reconcile previously reported contradictory experimental facts concerning measurements of charge for this type of membrane. The sharp boundary between the layers roughly corresponds to the region of the highest polymer density, that is, the actual selective barrier. The location of this barrier deep inside the RO films indicates that formation of the RO polyamide is not limited solely by monomer diffusion through the film, as was suggested previously, but by other factors as well. In the NF polyamide, the location of the boundary nearer toward the surface might suggest a larger role of the diffusion-limited regime in this type of membrane. Comparison of the morphology of standard and high-flux RO membranes showed that the modified procedure used to manufacture the latter apparently results in a more open structure of the active layer, and hence increased surface roughness, and a smaller thickness of the densest barrier. This finding contradicts the currently held view that the high permeability of this type of membrane is a function of increased surface roughness. The results largely support a recently presented theoretical model of polyamide membrane formation via interfacial polymerization.

An approximate analytical model of film formation by interfacial polycondensation is presented. The analysis requires knowledge of a minimal set of certain kinetic parameters (monomer diffusivities and reaction rate constants) and reaction conditions (monomer concentrations and thickness of the unstirred layer). The process proceeds as a succession of two or three markedly different kinetic regimes. Each regime (insipient film formation, slowdown, and diffusion-limited growth) sets a different pattern of local polymer accumulation, with important implications for the structure of the emerging film. At the incipient stage, a loose polymer film begins to emerge in a fixed narrow region inside the boundary layer, followed by gradual densification of the middle part of the film. A condition for film formation is thus formulated on the basis of our analysis. The model predicts that two different scenarios are possible, which depend on the permeability of the polymer: films with a low permeability to both monomers pass through an abrupt slowdown of film growth, whereas permeable films undergo a smooth transition between the incipient film formation and diffusion-limited regimes. The model incorporates the highly important effects of the accumulation of reactive end groups and the decrease of monomer diffusion with the polymer concentration on the kinetics of the process and film characteristics. In addition, the validity of the utilized mean-field approach is analyzed, and the analysis suggests a direct correlation between the roughness and the thickness of the film. The results are in good agreement with an earlier numerical study and the direct structural studies of polyamide membrane films.

The paper introduces a new methodology for studying polyamide composite membranes for reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) in liquid environments. The methodology is based on atomic force microscopy of the active layer, which had been separated from the support and placed on a solid substrate. The approach was employed to determine the thickness, interfacial morphology, and dimensional changes in solution (swelling) of polyamide films. The face (active) and back (facing the support) surfaces of the RO films appeared morphologically similar, in agreement with the recently proposed model of skin formation. Measured thickness and swelling data in conjunction with the intrinsic permeability of the membranes suggest that the selective barrier in RO membrane constitutes only a fraction of the polyamide skin, whereas NF membranes behave as nearly uniform films. For NF membranes, there was reasonable correlation between the changes in the swelling and in the permeability of the membrane and the salinity and pH of the feed.

The microstructure of Nafion varies in response to changes in hydration. Thus, it undergoes a transition from tightly packed bundles of inverted micelles with aqueous cores and fused hydrophobic shells ("macaroni bundles") at low hydrations to normal type ("spaghetti") micelles at high hydrations. It was postulated recently that a similar "macaroni-spaghetti" transition, i.e., breakup of surface-aligned macaroni to randomly oriented spaghetti, takes place at the polymer surface when the external medium is changed from vapor to liquid water, which can explain some puzzling features of Nafion and similar microphase-separated ionomers. The resulting (nonequilibrium) structures may remain confined to a few nanometers thick surface region. Here, this picture is corroborated using grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS), contact angle, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The enhanced alignment of bundles adjacent to the surface in vapor, similar to the effect of biaxial stretching, is elucidated by GISAXS of spin-cast Nafion films. It is inferred from the characteristic change in relative intensities and position of the ionomer peak in the X-Y (in-plane) and Z (out-of-plane) directions with varying X-ray penetration depths into the film. However, contact angle measurements show that the relatively smooth and very hydrophobic surface of Nafion in vapor transforms to a hydrophilic surface, when vapor as the external medium is replaced with liquid water. In addition, AFM indicates that the surface roughness significantly increases in liquid. The results demonstrate that the surface region of Nafion and similar microphase-separated materials may be indeed subject to drastic structural variations, even though the extremely slow relaxation of the solid matrix may preclude propagation of such changes into the bulk. These effects may have a profound effect on the macroscopic characteristics of Nafion membranes, such as hydration and conductivity, as well as their functioning as ion-selective barriers in electrochemical and other applications.