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Alicyclic polyamide nanofilms with an asymmetric structure for Cl-/SO42- separation

Journal: AICHE J., Volume 68, JAN

Authors: Yuan, Bingbing; Zhang, Shanshan; Jiang, Chi; Hu, Ping; Cui, Jiabao; Zhao, Siheng; Wang, Ning; Niu, Q. Jason

Organizations: Fund for Key Scientific and Technological Projects of Henan Province [202102210226, 212102210200]; Key scientific research projects of colleges and universities in Henan Province [21A430021]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [22008056, U2006230]; Henan Normal University Youth Science Fund [2021QK11]; Shandong Province Major Science and Technology Innovation Project [2018CXGC1002]

Keywords: alicyclic polyamide; asymmetric; Cl-/SO42- separation; contorted monomer

Herein, we report an asymmetric alicyclic polyamide nanofilm with an enhanced pore interconnectivity established by manipulating the molecular geometric structure, composed of a porous aromatic polyamide dendrimer layer and a dense alicyclic polyamide layer with hollow stripes. The experimental and simulated data demonstrate that the alicyclic polyamide nanofilm with an asymmetric structure exhibits a negative surface charge and contains more interconnected voids ranging from 1.95 to 3.0 angstrom, which facilitates the rejection of SO42- with a higher charge density and the passage of Cl- with a smaller hydrated radius, resulting in a good Cl-/SO42- separation selectivity. The resulting membrane attains a 197.11 separation selectivity for Cl- and SO42- and a water flux (for Na2SO4) similar to 2.2 times that of the pristine polyamide membrane. This fine-tuning pore approach resulting from the considered alicyclic structure can also be employed in other separation membranes, such as membranes for gas, solvent, or neutral molecular separation.