Effect of Methyl and Fluorine Grafted Silica Nanoparticles on the Performance of Polypropylene Membrane Contactors

The use of membrane contactors for acidic gases purification is one of the important advances in engineering processes and environmental protection. Despite the many advantages of membrane contactors, the wetting of membranes is the most important problem in developing this technology. In order to reduce the wetting problem of membranes, in this work, super hydrophobic polypropylene hollow fiber membranes were prepared and their structure and performance were evaluated by various tests. The results of the contact angle measurements showed that for the membranes coated with methyl and fluorine functional group the contact angle increased to 162° and 155°, respectively. The results of Wilson's plot also showed that the mass transfer resistance of pure, methyl-coated and fluorine-coated membranes was 30.78%, 18.79% and 22.45%, respectively. Therefore, methyl-coated membranes have a high potential to be used in membrane contactors.