Thin film composite polyamide membranes: parametric study on the influence of synthesis conditions

Preparation of thin film composite (TFC) polyamide (PA) membranes by interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction is remarkably sensitive to the interactions between synthesis parameters. Here we report the effect of the simultaneous change in four synthesis parameters, namely monomers concentrations (m-phenylenediamine, MPD, and trimesoyl chloride, TMC), reaction time and curing temperature, on the surface morphology and on the permeation properties of TFC membranes. By varying several synthesis parameters at the same time using a Taguchi robust design (L9 orthogonal arrays), it was found that monomers concentration and curing temperature significantly affected water permeation by creating a substantial change in morphology of the PA films. More importantly, a strong interaction between monomers concentration was observed, which demonstrates the importance of smart adjustment of these parameters in the preparation process. Permeation properties were justified by thickness and by the cross-link density of the synthesized films; the latter was found to be more influential. Based on analysis of variance (ANOVA), the contribution of the synthesis parameters towards change in water permeation was determined as: curing temperature (40.7%) > MPD concentration (28%) similar to TMC concentration (27.8%) > reaction time (1.9%). The findings will provide valuable guidelines to develop practical low cost, robust and high performance membranes by changing the curing temperature and the monomer concentrations as critical parameters.