High-flux polyamide thin film nanofiltration membrane incorporated with metal-induced ordered microporous polymers

As a new kind of porous nanomaterials, metal-induced ordered microporous polymers (MMPs) were incorporated into polyamide (PA) selective layer during interfacial polymerization process to fabricate a novel, high performance nanofiltration membrane. The porous structure of MMPs could provide the additional water transport channel to improve membrane permeability. Moreover, the MMPs particles could react with trimesoyl chloride (TMC) monomer to form strong covalent bonds, which guaranteed the particles with better stability and interface compatibility in PA layer. The resultant polyamide-MMP-3/polysulfone (PA-MMP-3/PSf) membrane with 0.05 wt% MMP-3 particles loading displayed an excellent permeability up to 14.1 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1, which was almost twice that of pristine PA/PSf membrane, and the rejection of Na2SO4 remained at a high level (~95%). The PA-MMP-3/PSf membrane also showed excellent separation performance during the long-term operation for 70 h. In summary, this work presents a promising approach to fabricating hybrid nanofiltration membranes.