Thin-Film Nanocomposite Membrane Based on Mineral Silicate Maifanite for Organic Solvent Reverse Osmosis

Abstract

Modern industries usually require membrane separation technologies to perform well in organic solvent systems; however, typical commercialized reverse osmosis (RO) membranes often suffer from swelling and instability. Herein, we proposed a “CCC” post-treatment method to directly upgrade a traditional RO membrane and extend its potential application in the deep purification of integrated circuit materials. This method combines inorganic maifanite particles and organic polymer adamantane structures, benefiting from the merits of inorganic and organic materials, to successfully establish a stable mixed matrix membrane (MMM) structure on a thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane surface after the CCC post-treatment, involving conditioning, cross-linking, and curing. The as-prepared TFN membrane was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy and evaluated using organic solvent RO. This study offers a new perspective and an effective solution for the separation of inorganic salts from organic solvents. The as-prepared TFN MMM was able to separate 99.1% of Li+, 96.8% of Ca2+, 96.9% of Zn2+, and 98.9% of Al3+ from an organic solvent through simple dead-end filtration with a stable performance and had a competitive capacity in the purification of lithium carbonate.