Improvement of hydrophilicity properties of thin-film-based PVDF membrane by plasma irradiation for use in desalination

Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) is one of the materials that has a great ability to form a membrane, but due to its hydrophobic nature, its use in nanofiltration membranes is problematic. The solution proposed to solve the hydrophobicity problem of PVDF is nitrogen plasma irradiation. In this research, the effect of modifying the surface characteristics of PVDF membrane by N2 plasma irradiation on filtration performance was investigated. For this purpose, the modified membranes were evaluated by SEM, FT-IR, AFM, and CA analyses and compared with the control membrane. By gradually increasing the applied power of the irradiated plasma on the surface of the membranes, the hydrophilic properties and performance of the modified membranes improved. The results indicate an improvement in the flux rejection and recovery rate in the modified membrane under N2 plasma irradiation with super hydrophilic properties compared to the pure PVDF membrane. Based on the results of the experiments, the best flux recovery rate of 11.8 and 94% rejection can be obtained for the irradiated membrane with an applied power of 120W.