(643c) 3D Printing of Thin Film Composite Membranes for Nanofiltration and Beyond
AIChE Annual Meeting
2022
2022 Annual Meeting
Separations Division
Innovation in Membrane Manufacturing
Thursday, November 17, 2022 - 1:12pm to 1:33pm
Our work has identified a new approach to making membranes through additive manufacturing using electrospray deposition. This method enables the processing of classic and emerging polymer materials into thin film composite (TFC) membranes. Unlike current TFC membranes, we do not need to form these selective layers in-situ.
Our work demonstrates the ability to print membranes for a variety of separations using a number of emergent polymers, such as zwitterionic copolymer (nanofiltration), polyether epoxy (chlorine tolerant nanofiltration), and PIM-1 (gas separations). Traditionally, these polymers would be processed using a phase inversion process, leading to an integrated asymmetric membrane with relatively low permeance. Our work demonstrates the versatility of the method to make TFC membranes with different polymers and yield selective yet substantially higher permeance due to our ability to make thinner, defect free membranes.
We contextualize this work in the broader perspective of membrane manufacturing which has seen little innovation in the past 4 decades. Innovations in membrane manufacturing will enable the use of the increasing number of new membrane materials and could help realize the benefits promised by these materials.