title: Exploring and Exploiting the Effect of Solvent Treatment in Membrane Separations.
abstract: It is well-known that solvent treatment and preconditioning play an important role in rejection and flux performance of membranes due to solvent-induced swelling and solvent adsorption. Investigations into the effect of solvent treatment are scarce and application specific, and were limited to a few solvents only. This study reveals the trend in solvent treatment based on solvent polarity in a systematic investigation with the aim to harness such effect for intensification of membrane processes. Nine solvents with polarity indices ranging from 0.1 to 5.8 (hexane to acetonitrile) were used as treatment and process solvents on commercial Borsig GMT-oNF-2, Evonik Duramem 300, and emerging tailor-made polybenzimidazole membranes. TGA-GCMS, HS-GC-FID, and NMR techniques were employed to better understand the effect of solvent treatment on the polymer matrix of membranes. In this work, apart from the solvent treatment's direct effect on the membrane performance, a subsequent indirect effect on the ultimate separation process was observed. Consequently, a pharmaceutical case study employing chlorhexidine disinfectant and antiseptic was used to demonstrate the effect of solvent treatment on the nanofiltration-based purification. It is shown that treatment of polybenzimidazole membranes with acetone resulted in a 25% increase in product recovery at 99% impurity removal. The cost of the process intensification is negligible in terms of solvent consumption, mass intensity, and processing time.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical Engineering & Analytical Science, The University of Manchester , The Mill, Sackville Street, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Mayamin
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0517-6120
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Razali
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical Engineering & Analytical Science, The University of Manchester , The Mill, Sackville Street, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Didaskalou
authors.affiliation: WCU Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University , 222 Wangsimni ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jeong F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical Engineering & Analytical Science, The University of Manchester , The Mill, Sackville Street, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Masoud
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Babaei
authors.affiliation: WCU Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University , 222 Wangsimni ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea.|Institute on Membrane Technology (ITM-CNR) , Via P. Bucci 17/C, 1-87030 Rende, Cosenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Drioli
authors.affiliation: WCU Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University , 222 Wangsimni ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Young Moo
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5047-3143
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical Engineering & Analytical Science, The University of Manchester , The Mill, Sackville Street, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Gyorgy
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9658-2452
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Szekely
keywords: membrane conditioning; membrane preconditioning; nanofiltration; pharmaceuticals; process intensification