Professor CY Tang from the Department of Civil Engineering and his team worked on the research for the topic “Ultra-permeable silk-based polymeric membranes for vacuum-driven nanofiltration”. The research findings were published by Nature Communications on 05 October, 2024.
Details of the publication:
Ultra-permeable silk-based polymeric membranes for vacuum-driven nanofiltration
Bowen Gan, Lu Elfa Peng, Wenyu Liu, Lingyue Zhang, Li Ares Wang, Li Long, Hao Guo, Xiaoxiao Song, Zhe Yang & Chuyang Y. Tang
Article in Nature Communications
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53042-6
Abstract
Nanofiltration (NF) membranes are commonly supplied in spiral-wound modules, resulting in numerous drawbacks for practical applications (e.g., high operating pressure/pressure drop/costs). Vacuum-driven NF could be a promising and low-cost alternative by utilizing simple components and operating under an ultra-low vacuum pressure (<1 bar). Nevertheless, existing commercial membranes are incapable of achieving practically relevant water flux in such a system. Herein, we fabricated a silk-based membrane with a crumpled and defect-free rejection layer, showing water permeance of 96.2 ± 10 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 and a Na2SO4 rejection of 96.0 ± 0.6% under cross-flow filtration mode. In a vacuum-driven system, the membrane demonstrates a water flux of 56.8 ± 7.1 L m−2 h−1 at a suction pressure of 0.9 bar and high removal rate against various contaminants. Through analysis, silk-based ultra-permeable membranes may offer close to 80% reduction in specific energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions compared to a commercial benchmark, holding great promise for advancing a more energy-efficient and greener water treatment process and paving the avenue for practical application in real industrial settings.