RESUMO
The freshwater shortage continues to be one of the greatest challenges affecting our planet. Although traditional membrane distillation (MD) can produce clean water regardless of climatic conditions, the process wastes a lot of energy. The technique of solar-powered membrane distillation (SPMD) has received a lot of interest in the past decade, thanks to the development of photothermal materials. SPMD is a promising replacement for the traditional MD based on fossil fuels, as it can prevent the harmful effects of emissions on the environment. Integrating green solar energy with MD can reduce the cost of the water purification process and secure freshwater production in remote areas. At this point, it is important to consider the most current progress of the SPMD system and highlight the challenges and prospects of this technology. Based on this, the background, recent advances, and principles of MD and SPMD, their configurations and mechanisms, fabrication methods, advantages, and current limitations are discussed. Detailed comparisons between SPMD and traditional MD, assessments of various standards for incorporating photothermal materials with desirable properties, discussions of desalination and other applications of SPMD and MD, and energy consumption rates are also covered. The final section addresses the potential of SPMD to outperform traditional desalination technology while improving water production without requiring a significant amount of electrical or high-grade thermal energy.
RESUMO
Exploration and transportation of oil offshore can result in oil spills that cause a wide range of adverse environmental consequences and destroy aquatic life. Membrane technology outperformed the conventional procedures for oil emulsion separation due to its improved performance, reduced cost, removal capacity, and greater eco-friendly. In this study, a hydrophobic iron oxide-oleylamine (Fe-Ol) nanohybrid was synthesized and incorporated into polyethersulfone (PES) to prepare novel PES/Fe-Ol hydrophobic ultrafiltration (UF) mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). Several characterization techniques were performed to characterize the synthesized nanohybrid and fabricated membranes, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), contact angle, and zeta potential. The membranes' performance was assessed using a surfactant-stabilized (SS) water-in-hexane emulsion as a feed and a dead-end vacuum filtration setup. The incorporation of the nanohybrid enhanced the hydrophobicity, porosity, and thermal stability of the composite membranes. At 1.5 wt% Fe-Ol nanohybrid, the modified PES/Fe-Ol MMM membranes reported high water rejection efficiency of 97.4% and 1020.4 LMH filtrate flux. The re-usability and antifouling properties of the membrane were examined over five filtration cycles, demonstrating its great potential for use in water-in-oil separation.