LAUSR

Over the next decades, many regions worldwide will likely face dramatic changes in the availability of water. Desalination of seawater appears as the perfect mean to ensure water supply. To this end, membrane filtration processes represent a promising technology since they can achieve high levels of purification and are simple technically, energy efficient, and typically scalable. However, membrane fouling, characterized by the deposition of solid material onto and into the membrane surface, is still the main problem of this treatment. In this work, novel highly flux antifouling membranes were prepared via phase inversion technique using polyethersulfone blending with a nanomaterials solution of sodium dodecyl sulfate, titanium dioxide (TiO2), and triethanol amine, in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone as a solvent. Three kinds of membranes were prepared: M1 without support, M2 with nonwoven support, and M3 with woven support. Desalination test was carried out using real samples from Mediterranean Sea. The scanning electron microscopy results prove that prepared membranes have dense top layer and small fingerlike structure in the middle, while the bottom layer is porous due to woven support. The prepared membrane using woven support exhibits excellent mechanical behavior. Furthermore, desalination test results indicate that salt rejection reached 96% at a high flux of 134.9 kg/m2 h under operating pressure up to 40 bar and using the membrane with woven support.