Catalytic template assisted interfacial polymerization for high-performance acid-resistant membrane preparation

Abstract

Highly permeable acid-resistant nanofiltration (NF) membranes are of critical significance for the efficient treatment of acidic streams. Enhancing permeability while maintaining the high solute rejection of acid-resistant NF membranes remains a great challenge due to the low reactivity of monomers. In this work, a novel catalytic template assisted interfacial polymerization (IP) strategy of 3-aminobenzenesulfonamide (ABSA) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) was provided to prepare a poly(amide-sulfonamide) membrane. Aminopyridine doped graphene quantum dots rich in acylation catalytic sites and ZIF-8 nanoparticles are co-loaded on a substrate as template. Benefiting from the enhanced phase integrity and self-inhibition effect of the template assisted IP process, the resulting ultra-thin acid-resistant membrane exhibits an excellent water permeance (20.4 Lm−2h−1bar−1) with a high Na2SO4 rejection of 90.5%, which outperforms almost all the reported acid-resistant NF membranes. Our work paves a versatile way for synthesis of special separation membranes.