مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Preparation of a zeolite 4A loaded polyether block amide membrane and usage for seawater desalination

Abstract :

In this study, it was aimed to remove all hydrated ions and chemicals from the seawater by using pervaporation technique. For this purpose, polyether block amide membrane was prepared. The model saline water and the real seawater desalination experiments were performed with temperature ranging from 30 °C to 60 °C using different amount of zeolite loaded membranes. The performance of the experiments was evaluated as function of water flux and salt rejection. The ion concentration of the desalinated water was analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer (Perkin Elmer Elan DRC-e ICP-MS). In conclusion, the highest salt rejection of 99.78% and a flux of 3.43 kg/m2.h were obtained using 30 wt. % of zeolite 4A loaded membrane when the model NaCl-water solution was desalinated at 40 °C. In the case of the real seawater experiments, 10 wt. % zeolite 4A incorporated membrane gave the highest rejection of 99.85% with a flux of 4.61 kg/m2.h at 40 °C. When the ICP analysis was evaluated, it was seen that the 10 wt. % zeolite incorporated membrane was very effective to separate hydrated ions, heavy metals from the seawater. When the all results were considered, contaminant concentration in desalinated water was found to be low to meet with drinking and irrigation water standards.