Enhancement of Antiwetting Properties of Polystyrene Nanofibrous Membrane by Doping with Graphene Nanoplatelets

Abstract:

Membrane distillation (MD) being an emerging technology, it suffers from many limitations. One of which is the need for membranes with specific characteristics to ensure successful operation and sustainable performance. Membrane wetting phenomenon is one of the significant disadvantages of MD which take place primarily due to membrane pore wetting with the operating liquids. The present work studies the effect of addition of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) on enhancing the antiwetting properties of enhanced polystyrene (PS₁₂-SDS) nanofibrous membranes. Results showed that adding 0.5wt% of GNPs to the PS₁₂-SDS polymer matrix enhanced the hydrophobicity of the produced membranes and decreased the mean fiber diameter of the produced membranes by about 5.5% and 36.6%, respectively. The composite (PS₁₂-SDS-GNPs) membrane also showed better salt rejection compared with PS₁₂-SDS at all studied feed flow rates.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 1060)
• Pages: 83-88
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-suy72p
• Online since: May 2022
• Authors: Asmaa Elrasheedy*, Marwa F. El Kady, Mohamed Bassyouni, Tsuyoshi Yoshitake, Ahmed Hassan El Shazly
• Keywords: GNPs, Graphene Nanoplatelets, Membrane Distillation, Polystyrene, Water Purification

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