To meet humanity’s increasing and unavoidable need for water, the saline water must be converted into freshwater through desalination.RO is especially a common desalination method because it allows for extremely fast water molecules transport through a membrane while obstructing all ions. Still, desalination through RO faces several challenges. One of the most famous and recently studied candidates for use in RO or NF membranes is Graphene has excellent chemical and mechanical stability, and it is the most prominent thinnest possible membrane with its one atom thickness acting as the membrane. As. a further benefit, graphene manifests greater resistance to chlorine than current polyamide membranes. In the fabrication of an efficient graphene NF/RO membrane, it is critical to have a suitable flexible substrate (hydrogel) that can offer support to the one-atom-thick graphene membrane while still allowing rapid water transmission. The application of the plasma method can make the graphene membrane and its substrate controllably nanoporous. In this project, the process of transferring CVD graphene onto a hydrogel modified NF membrane will be discussed. CVD graphene is fragile and can easily be torn if it is directly transferred to the support structure. A hydrogel underlayer—polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)—has been synthesized and cross-linked to allow transference without damage. The degree of crosslinking, the thickness of the casting can affect the permeability of a PVA membrane. The graphene is transferred onto the PVA support by a simple but unique approach to decreasing the chance that defects will form. Experimental work combined with membrane characterization methods (SEM, AFM, and FTIR) and filtration studies using a home-made RO system to examine the graphene as RO membrane will be presented. These results will be compared with the other synthesized membrane and different types of supports.

CVD Graphene-based membrane on the polymeric support for water purification

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.