Narmin Mortazavian - Nanobiotechnology research group, faculty of Chemical Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran
Ahmad Rahimpour - Nanobiotechnology research group, faculty of Chemical Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran
Mohsen Jahanshahi - Nanobiotechnology research group, faculty of Chemical Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran

In the current study, a novel thin film composite nanofiltration membrane was prepared by interfacial polymerization and evaluated for water softening. Its nanofiltration performance was evaluated by cross flow filtration using NaCl (1 g/l) and MgSO4 (1 g/l) solution at 5 and 10 bars, 25 °C and 10 l/min. The morphological study was investigated by SEM and AFM. In addition, Thin-film composite polyamide nanofiltration membrane was fabricated using interfacial polymerization of piperazine with trimesoyl chloride (TMC) onto PES ultrafiltration membrane prepared with immersion precipitation technique. A rough, dense was formed on the PES support membrane by interfacial polymerization. The water permeability of composite membrane was 50 and 178 kg.m−2.h−1 at 5 and 10 bars, respectively. Moreover, the rejection to the divalent salt MgSO4 (74 and 80%) was high compared to the monovalent salt NaCl (55 and 59%).

composite membrane, nanofiltration, water treatment