The Potential of Nanoparticles for Upgrading Thin Film Nanocomposite Membranes – A Review

Abstract

Over the past decade, many applications were intended for filtration by membrane technology especially the thin film composite (TFC) membranes. In advanced developments of thin film membranes, an attempt was made to spread a new generation of membranes called thin film nano composite (TFN) membranes. However, in the last generation of TFNs, an ultrathin selective film of nanoparticles is coated on the porous sub-layer with different procedures (i.e. interfacial polymerization (IP), dip coating and Plasma polymerization) which contained nanoparticles in a scale of 20-200 nm. Thin film nanocomposite membranes are the last generation of RO membranes which are known as the best appliance in the nanofiltration researches. In this realm, with the help of nanotechnology, membrane science has introduced a novel gamut in science and technology. By using new nanoparticles and nanocomposites among the structure of membranes, the TFNs were born to help the separation and purification processes. To fabricate high efficiency thin film nanocomposites, many manners, theories and additive particles are modified and chosen with regards to time and applications which can increase selectivity, permeability and porosity in addition to the reduction of fouling or improvement of salt rejection. The current review is written to seek the maze of thin film nanocomposite membranes in the past few years with the goal of clarifications of this novel method of filtration, its outlook, nanoparticles and applications which were used before and can be used in the future.