May May Teoh

Morphological architecture of dual-layer hollow fiber for membrane distillation with higher desalination performance.

A new strategy to enhance the desalination performance of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber membrane for membrane distillation (MD) via architecture of morphological characteristics is explored in this study. It is proposed that a dual-layer hollow fiber consisting of a fully finger-like macrovoid inner-layer and a sponge-like outer-layer may effectively enhance the permeation flux while maintaining the wetting resistance. Dual-layer fibers with the proposed morphology have been fabricated by the dry-jet wet spinning process via careful choice of dopes composition and coagulation conditions. In addition to high energy efficiency (EE) of 94%, a superior flux of 98.6 L m(-2) h(-1) is obtained during the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) desalination experiments. Moreover, the liquid entry pressure (LEP) and long-term DCMD performance test show high wetting resistance and long-term stability. Mathematical modeling has been conducted to investigate the membrane mass transfer properties in terms of temperature profile and apparent diffusivity of the membranes. It is concluded that the enhancement in permeation flux arises from the coupling effect of two mechanisms; namely, a higher driving force and a lower mass transfer resistance, while the later is the major contribution. This work provides an insight on MD fundamentals and strategy to tailor making ideal membranes for DCMD application in desalination industry.

Molecular design of liquid crystalline poly(ester-amide)s with perfluoroalkyl spacers

We have introduced a series of perfluoroalkyl dicarboxylic acids with different lengths of fluorinated aliphatic segments into the 2,6-acetoxynaphthoic acid (ANA) and acetoxy acetanilide (AAA) systems; and their effects on the evolution of liquid crystal texture and liquid crystallinity have been investigated. The perfluoroalkyl dicarboxylic acids are tetrafluorosuccinic acid (TFSA, n=2), hexafluoroglutaric acid (HFGA, n=3), perfluorosuberic acid (PFSUA, n=6) and perfluorosebacic acid (PFSEA, n=8). Computational results based on the ‘RIS’ Metropolis Monte Carlo method indicate that the ANA/AAA/perfluoroalkyl system may form thermotropic liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs) because the calculated persistence ratios are greater than 6.42. Computational results also predict that the systems containing even-numbered perfluoroalkyl acids have greater persistence length and molar stiffness than that containing odd-numbered acids. Experiments were carried out using the in situ thin film polymerization technique under a polarizing optical microscope. We observed that systems containing short aliphatic units (n=2, 3) tend to remain in the LC phase, while systems containing a long aliphatic spacer (n=8) tend to crystallize during the late stage of the polycondensation reaction. The liquid crystal domain formed in the early stage has a disclination strength S of +1. Ternary phase diagrams were plotted to show the relationship among monomer structure, composition, anisotropic and crystalline phases. FTIR results confirm the formation of LCPs.