(A) Study on organosiloxane composite membrane for organic solvent nanofiltration.

Abstract

Separation of organic compounds, which are essential in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, occupies a large amount of energy, is mainly carried out by distillation. However, with the phase change, the required energy is enormous and some products are denatured by heat. Organic solvent nanofiltration, a membrane-based process, is emerging technology for due to its energy-efficient and low carbon emissions. Polymer membranes for organic solvent nanofiltration have been researched because of their high degree of freedom material and excellent processability, but show low stability and poor performance in organic solvents. We fabricated the organosiloxane composite membrane by initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD), showed excellent chemical stability without additional crosslinking process, and exhibited low solute rejection performance of ~250 g mol$^{-1}$ for acetone solvent. The organosiloxane composite membrane, which is made of a high-purity polymer membrane without using a solvent during the fabrication process, and can be easily scaled up, has potential in organic solvent nanofiltration.