Study on photothermal PVDF/ATO nanofiber membrane and its membrane distillation performance

In this study, we proposed a novel method of suppressing the temperature polarization of membrane distillation (MD) by heating the hydrophobic membrane surface through the photothermal effects of antimony doped tin oxide (ATO). The photothermal polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/ATO hybrid nanofiber membranes were fabricated by electrospinning technology. Effects of ATO loading on the hybrid membranes' photothermal property, morphologies, and also the separation performance were investigated, respectively. Compared with the PVDF nanofiber membrane with no ATO loading, the thermal radiation energy of ATO not only raised the hybrid membrane's temperature but also reduced the temperature polarization. The temperature polarization factor (TPF) was higher than 100% which demonstrated the effective reduction of temperature polarization. • The surface temperature of PVDF/ATO nanofiber membrane increased significantly under infrared radiation. • Under the same infrared radiation, the MD flux of M5 reached twice higher than M0. • TPF of PVDF/ATO hybrid membrane was higher than 100% which indicated the weaken temperature polarization.