An interdisciplinary apporach to novel membranes to achieve water clean up
Jordan Dennison, Xu Xie, and David G. Cahill
BP International Center for Advanced Materials

Reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes are widely used to decontaminate water. The active layer of commerical RO or NF membrane is typically an aromatic polyamide layer, on the order of 100 nm thick, formed by interfacial polymerization on a porous polysulfone support. The nanoscale dimensions and inhomogeneous morphology of the active layer greatly hinders basic understanding of the physics and chemistry that govern the separation of small molecule contaminants. We are collaborating with the groups of Profs. Marinas and Moore in developing and applying novel methods for probing these nanoscale complex materials. We use Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy to characterize microstructure and plasmon-enhanced optical and infrared spectroscopy to determine the strength of physical and chemical interactions of water and model contaminants with the membrane matrix. The ultimate goal is to isolate the thermodynamic and kinetic contributions that govern mass transport through the membrane.

---

File translated from T_EX by T_TH, version 4.06.
On 26 Dec 2016, 19:51.