The technique to fabricate nanofibrous mat by electro-spinning has been known for a long time. But the attempts to use the electospun nanofiber mats, also known as electro-spun nanofiber membranes (ENMs), for filtration purposes began only recently. Among many membrane filtration processes, air cleaning by the removal of dust particles has already been commercialized and the product has been in...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane in surfactant removal using various model aqueous solutions. separation tests were performed with laboratory scale units dead-end configuration. Cellulose Acetate (CA) and Polyamide (PA) RO membranes used nonionic, anionic, or cationic surfactants at wide range concentrations. Membrane evaluated permeate flux ...

Hypersaline brines are of growing environmental concern. While high-salinity desalination and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) increasingly attractive treatment options, the high salt scalant contents pose considerable technical difficulties to existing techniques. In this review, we introduce sources hypersaline brines, examine factors driving desalination, present thermodynamic minimum energy ZLD,...

Nanofiltration is increasingly gaining attention in many separation and treatment processes such as water softening, color removal and separation of medicines. Nanofiltration membranes are often negatively charged, displaying separation characteristics in the intermediate range between reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration. In this research, a novel nanofiltration membrane prepared with poly(amid...

Chemical force microscopy (CFM) was used to characterize the chemical heterogeneity of two commercially available nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes. CFM probes were modified with three different terminal functionalities: methyl (CH3), carboxyl (COOH), and hydroxyl (OH). Chemically distinct information about the membrane surfaces was deduced based on differences in adhesion between th...