Preparation and characterization of a novel positively charged composite hollow fiber nanofiltration membrane based on chitosan lactate

A positively charged composite hollow fiber nanofiltration (NF) membrane was prepared via interfacial polymerization (IP) between chitosan lactate (CL) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) on a polyether sulfone (PES) hollow fiber ultrafiltration (UF) membrane. The chemical structure and the morphologies of the resultant NF membranes were characterized with attenuated total reflectance-infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The rejection of NF membrane for different inorganic salt aqueous solutions followed the order: MgCl2 > ZnCl2 > MgSO4 > NaCl > Na2SO4. It suggested that this novel kind of composite hollow fiber NF membrane is positively charged. The molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) was obtained through the rejection of polyethylene glycol (PEG) solutions with different molecular weights (Mw). The effect of monomer concentrations, the interfacial polymerization time, and the curing temperature, were investigated, respectively. The rejection and the permeate flux of the resultant composite hollow fiber CL membrane fabricated under the optimal conditions towards a MgCl2 solution of 1000 ppm were 95.1% and 10.3 L m-2 h-1, respectively, at 0.4 MPa and 25 °C. Moreover, the effects of operation conditions on the rejection performance of the composite hollow fiber NF membrane were investigated. It suggested that this novel kind of hollow fiber composite nanofiltration membrane based on CL have excellent stability in rejection performances to salt solutions.