Nanocomposite membranes

In this project we examined two approaches for fabrication of nano-composite membranes: blending the nanoparticles in the membrane and coating the nanoparticles on the surface of the membrane by low temperature hydrothermal process (LTH). The blending approach is easily implemented however the loading of inorganic particles are limited by mechanical integrity of membranes. In the coating approach titania sol-gel particles were dip-coated onto membrane substrates, followed by heat and UV treatments to extract the residual organic templates.There are many approaches to modify polymeric membranes to mitigate fouling interactions for filtration applications. Most of these approaches are based on increasing membrane hydrophilicity and reducing micro-scale roughness either by grafting or coating hydrophilic organic moieties such as polyethylene glycol (PEG). More recently an alternative approach to reduce fouling characteristics of membranes has been to incorporate inorganic particles into polymeric membranes.