Novel ceramic-polymer composite membranes for the separation of hazardous liquid waste. 1998 annual progress report

Technical Report · Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/13736· OSTI ID:13736

Cohen, Y

'This report summarizes the work progress over the last 1.75 years of a 3 year project. The objectives of the project have been to develop a new class of ceramic-supported polymeric membranes that could be tailored-designed for a wide-range of applications in remediation and pollution prevention. To date, a new class of chemically-modified ceramic membranes was developed for the treatment of oil-in-water emulsions and for the pervaporation removal of volatile organics from aqueous systems. These new ceramic-supported polymer (CSP) membranes are fabricated by modifying the pore surface of a ceramic membrane support by a graft polymerization process (Chaimberg and Cohen, 1994). The graft polymerization process consists of activating the membrane surface with alkoxy vinyl silanes onto which vinyl monomers are added via free-radical graft polymerization resulting in a thin surface layer of terminally anchored polymer chains. Reaction conditions are selected based on knowledge of the graft polymerization kinetics for the specific polymer/substrate system. The resultant ceramic-supported polymer (CSP) membrane is a composite structure in which mechanical strength is provided by the ceramic support and the selectivity is determined by the covalently bonded polymer brush layer. Thus, one of the unique attributes of the CSP membrane is that it can be used in environments where the polymer layer is swollen (or even completely miscible) in the mixture to be separated (Castro et al., 1993). It is important to note that the above modification process is carried out under mild conditions (e.g., temperature of about 70 C) and is well suited for large scale commercial application. In a series of studies, the applicability of a polyvinylpyrrolidone CSP membrane was demonstrated for the treatment of oil-in-water emulsion under a variety of flow conditions (Castro et al.,1996). Improved membrane performance was achieved due to minimization of surface adsorption of the oil components. For the special case of long surface chains, significant additional performance improvement permeate stream was attained at high Reynolds numbers. At the high Reynolds number condition, shear-induced deformation of the terminally anchored polymer chains and as a consequence the screening of the pore entry, resulted in improved permeate quality. Current studies are focused on the optimization of the polymer surface layer and quantification of chemical and hydrodynamic polymer-emulsion interactions.'

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), Office of Science and Risk Policy
• OSTI ID: 13736
• Report Number(s): EMSP-54926-98; ON: DE00013736
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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54
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Progress Report
Ligands
Ion Exchange
Chemical Preparation
Remedial Action
Decontamination
Decommissioning
High-Level Radioactive Wastes
Radioactive Wastes
Chemical Wastes
PROGRESS REPORT
LIGANDS
ION EXCHANGE
CHEMICAL PREPARATION
REMEDIAL ACTION
DECONTAMINATION
DECOMMISSIONING
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
CHEMICAL WASTES