Influence of N-Butanol Composition on Membrane Performance in Coagulation Bath for Membrane Distillation

Abstract Membrane Distillation is one of the extensively used desalination technologies for the utilization of the waste heat in the industries. The membranes used in for membrane distillation have to be hydrophobic in nature so as to permeate only vapour through the membrane pores. In this background, there is a necessity to develop membranes with better hydrophobicity and mechanical strength for overall performance. In this paper, we discuss the preparation of polyvinylidene fluoride homopolymer by phase inversion technique using N-methyl pyrrolidone as solvent. Water and n – butanol in varying compositions by weight percent from 0 to 100% is used as non-solvent. Contact angle and permeate flux were measured for the synthesized membranes. The results indicated that the membranes made of PVDF immersed in 100 % n-butanol coagulation solution shows good hydrophobic behaviour and also achieved higher permeate flux compared to the other membranes reported in literature.