459842 Micro-Deformation in Polyethersulfone Inner-Selective Thin Film Composite Hollow Fiber Membranes Under High Hydraulic Pressures in Pressure Retarded Osmosis Process
Micro-deformation in Polyethersulfone Inner-selective Thin Film Composite Hollow Fiber Membranes under High Hydraulic Pressures in Pressure Retarded Osmosis Process
Wenxiao Gai, Xue Li, Jun Ying Xiong, Chun Feng Wan, Tai-Shung Chung *
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore
* Corresponding author: Tel.: +65 6516 6645. E-mail: chencts@nus.edu.sg
Abstract
Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) is one of the promising methods to harvest the osmotic energy , which is a clean and renewable candidate to mitigate the dependence of mankind on non-renewable and environmentally detrimental fossil fuels, by separating the two solutions using a semi-permeable membrane. Recently, lots of thin film composite (TFC) hollow fiber (HF) membranes have been developed for PRO application because of their self-support configuration and high packing density properties. This work may be one of the first attempts to systematically investigate (1) the micro-deformation of the inner-selective TFC HF membranes under high hydraulic pressures for osmotic power generation and (2) the evolution of permeation properties with the increased hydraulic pressures applied in the lumen side from 0 to 20 bar. Experimental results show that pre-stabilization at 20 bar close to the burst pressure of the polyethersulfone (PES) TFC HF membranes could improve the water flux and power density dramatically due to the increased membrane surface area, stretched polyamide selective layer and decreased membrane structure parameter. It was also proved by the intermittent cycle tests that the enhancement of water flux and power density is sustainable after pre-stabilization at 20 bar without compromising the selectivity. These results may provide significant technical implications to design desirable membranes for PRO application and maximize the output of the PRO process.
See more of this Group/Topical: Topical Conference: Innovations of Green Process Engineering for Sustainable Energy and Environment