Highways for water molecules: Interplay between nanostructure and water vapor transport in block copolymer membranes
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Type
ArticleAuthors
Akhtar, Faheem
Vovushua, Hakkim
Villalobos, Luis Francisco

Shevate, Rahul
Kumar, Mahendra

Nunes, Suzana Pereira

Schwingenschlögl, Udo

Peinemann, Klaus-Viktor

KAUST Department
Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Research CenterBiological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
Chemical Engineering Program
Computational Physics and Materials Science (CPMS)
Environmental Science and Engineering Program
Material Science and Engineering Program
Nanostructured Polymeric Membrane Lab
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Water Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)
Date
2018-11-24Online Publication Date
2018-11-24Print Publication Date
2019-02Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630181
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Water vapor removal is a crucial process for several industries (e.g., air conditioning systems, flue gas dehydration, compressed air drying etc.). An effective dehumidification has the potential to drastically reduce the energy consumption and the overall cost of a process stream. Membranes with high water permeance and selectivity are promising candidates to achieve an energy-efficient water removal. We propose self-assembled membranes with interconnected and ordered hydrophilic domains that act as extremely fast water transport highways (water channels). We used a commercial amphiphilic pentablock copolymer (Nexar™), which has the ability to form long-range, self-ordering nanoscale morphologies with rigid end-blocks and a flexible molecular network where polar and non-polar solvents regulated the final morphologies of the membranes are systematically investigated. Our results demonstrate how well-defined periodic morphology allow for molecular level control in effective removal of water vapor. The membranes with ordered hydrophilic nanochannels present a 6-fold improvement in water vapor permeability and a 14-fold increase in water vapor/N2 selectivity compared to Nexar™ membranes with disordered domains.Molecular dynamics stimulations are carried out on the self-assembly behavior of block copolymer solution in different solvents. In addition, sorption and desorption kinetics studies for Nexar™ films were correlated to the different morphologies imaged by transmission electron, atomic force and environmental scanning electron microscopy.Citation
Akhtar FH, Vovushua H, Villalobos LF, Shevate R, Kumar M, et al. (2019) Highways for water molecules: Interplay between nanostructure and water vapor transport in block copolymer membranes. Journal of Membrane Science 572: 641–649. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2018.11.050.Sponsors
The research reported in this publication was supported by the funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Table of content was created by Xavier Pita, Scientific illustrator at KAUST.Publisher
Elsevier BVJournal
Journal of Membrane ScienceAdditional Links
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376738818324979ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.memsci.2018.11.050