Preparation and Characterization of Hydrophobic Flat Sheet Membranes Based on a Recycled Polymer

Abstract

In this work, we used a recycled low-density polyethylene (LDPE) in order to prepare flat sheet membranes with different polymer concentrations (5 and 10%). The used chemical method for the membrane's preparation is the phase inversion. After obtaining the membranes, we characterized them by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to study their structure and surface characteristics. Based on the SEM images, our membranes have a dense skin layer. In addition, we observed a decrease in the porosity with the increase in the polymer concentration. When the polymer concentration increases from 5 to 10% the porosity decreases from 35.54% to 20.28%. Furthermore, we remarked significant changes in the contact angle and the surface roughness with the increase of the polymer concentration. The roughness increases from 363 to 577 nm for the same evolution of the polymer concentration. These high values of roughness imply obtaining values of contact angles greater than 90° and hydrophobic membranes, which is beneficial for the membrane distillation. Furthermore, the use of our membranes in vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) experiments showed a permeate flux up to 1.503 kg/hm2; for the membrane with 35.54% of porosity and 5% of polymer concentration.

Performance of a membrane fabricated from high-density polyethylene waste for dye separation in water

“…The increase in concentration affected the roughness on the surface, causing the hydrophilicity properties of the membrane to decrease. Ajari et al 30 reported the same thing in LDPE membranes, where an increase in polymer concentration from 5% to 10% led to an increase in the contact angle of the membrane due to increasing the roughness of the membrane surface.…”

“…According to the results in Table 2, HDPE waste could be dissolved in toluene, xylene, and mineral oil. However, because the boiling point of xylene and toluene only ranged from 110–140 °C, 30 this solution could be very easily compacted when poured on a glass plate. As a result, this would certainly complicate the membrane casting process.…”

“…The wet membrane was then weighed. The porosity was calculated by eqn (1), where ε is the porosity (%); W 1 is the mass of the wet sample (g); W 2 is the mass of the dry sample (g); ρ 1 is the density of HDPE (0.941 g cm −3 ); and ρ 2 is the density of isobutanol (0.802 g cm −3 ): 30 …”

Valorization of Date Palm Wastes by Lignin Extraction to be Used for the Improvement of Polymeric Membrane Characteristics

“…Many configurations of membranes can be seen such as hollow fiber membranes or flat membranes [28]. In this study, we prepared flat membranes from a waste of low density polyethylene (LDPE) as described elsewhere [29].…”

Applications of Helical Versus Straight Hollow Fiber Membranes: A Review

“…More specifically, researchers have sought to leverage hydrodynamic phenomena' simulation and modeling studies to optimize membrane distillation operating parameters [1][2][3][4][5]. Furthermore, the choice of membrane materials and fabrication processes have been widely explored to increase the permeate flux and mitigate fouling phenomena [6][7][8][9][10]. According to Culfaz et al [11], the helical configuration of the membrane promotes turbulence and therefore causes a significant reduction in concentration polarization.…”