Thin Film Composite (TFC) with a MOF layer on Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes buckypaper (SWCNT-bp) for Nanofiltration (NF) and Organic Solvent Nanofiltration (NF)

Abstract

Nowadays, in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, the nanofiltration membrane system is gaining importance in both aqueous and organic solvents due to its flexibility, energy efficiency, and low-cost technology. Usually, these membranes are constituted by porous polymeric supports and a selective polyamide layer, which can be improved by the introduction of a filler. Between other materials, MOFs (metal-organic frameworks) have been used as fillers as they have outstanding features (high specific surface area, adsorption properties, molecular sieving, flexibility, organicinorganic nature, and possibility of functionalization). Typically, the filler has been included during the interfacial polymerization of the polyamide layer but other different methodologies to position the MOF in the membrane have been developed like interfacial synthesis or Langmuir-Schaefer. In this work, we report a nanofiltration membrane with good performance in both organic and aqueous feeds based in SWCNT-bp support in which a MOF (ZIF-8 and ZIF-93) has been grown via a layer by layer method, on top of which a polyamide layer is synthesized by an interfacial polymerization method.