Nanotechnology

Polymer chemistry

Polyamide

Coating

Membrane

Forward osmosis

Nanocomposite

Reverse osmosis

Engineering

Chemistry

Materials science

Desalination

Polyimide

Layer (electronics)

Thin-film composite membrane

Chemical engineering

Permeation

Biochemistry

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

The metal-organic framework (MOF)-based polyamide (PA) membranes applied for desalination with high permeability and selectivity are attracting more and more attention. However, the design and fabrication of high-quality and stable MOF-based PA nanocomposite reverse osmosis (RO) membrane still remain a big challenge. Herein, Fe3+-polyphenolic complex coating via interfacial coordination was first explored as an interlayer of an in situ assembled stable and high-quality Fe(BTC)-based PA nanocomposite RO membranes for desalination. Although depositing the Fe3+-polyphenolic complex on the polymer support, sufficient heterogeneous nucleation sites for the in situ synthesizing Fe(BTC) are provided. Using this strategy, we can not only facilely prepare continuous MOF-based PA nanocomposite RO membranes, ignoring the complicated and time-consuming co-blending process and the MOF-particle aggregation, but also restrict the formation of PA matrix inside the pores of the support membrane and increase the rigidity of the polyamide chain. The method also gives a proper level of generality for the fabrication of versatile stable MOF-based PA RO membranes on various supports. The prepared PA/Fe(BTC) composite membrane exhibited excellent separation performance with a large permeate flux of 2.93 L m-2 h-1 bar-1 and a high NaCl rejection of 96.8%.

In Situ Assembly of Polyamide/Fe(BTC) Nanocomposite Reverse Osmosis Membrane Assisted by Fe<sup>3+</sup>–Polyphenolic Complex for Desalination

In Situ Assembly of Polyamide/Fe(BTC) Nanocomposite Reverse Osmosis Membrane Assisted by Fe3+–Polyphenolic Complex for Desalination

In Situ Assembly of Polyamide/Fe(BTC) Nanocomposite Reverse Osmosis Membrane Assisted by Fe³⁺–Polyphenolic Complex for Desalination