Fabrication of a new type of polyvinyl alcohol/sulfosuccinic acid/glutaric anhydride cation exchange membrane for desalination using membrane capacitive deionization

Abstract

Nowadays, the lack of clean water is becoming a serious problem, due to the increasing
demand for clean water, along with global climate change. Desalination of sea water or
brackish water has been considered as a practicable method to supply clean water. Among
desalination technologies, membrane capacitive deionization has emerged for the last 15
years as an alternative method and received a lot of research attention since then. In this
study, low-cost and ecofriendly polyvinyl alcohol/sulfosuccinic acid/glutaric anhydride
composite membranes were fabricated through the crosslinking reaction of sulfosuccinic
acid and glutaric anhydride with polyvinyl alcohol. The effect of sulfosuccinic acid and
glutaric anhydride content was investigated. The presence of SSA in the cation exchange
membrane, which was proven by FT-IR, helps improve its water uptake (98.5 % compared
to 38.2 %) as well as cation exchange capacity (1.993 mM/g compared to 0.156 mM/g).
The polyvinyl alcohol/sulfosuccinic acid/glutaric anhydride composite solution was
coated on the electrode, and the membrane's ability to desalinate water was assessed. The
membrane-coated electrode exhibited enhanced salt adsorption capacity and shorter
desalination time (13.4 minutes compared to 85.3 minutes) in comparison with the
uncoated commercial electrode, indicating that the polyvinyl alcohol/sulfosuccinic
acid/glutaric anhydride membrane is a suitable candidate to be utilized in the membrane
capacitive deionization systems.
® 2022 Journal of Science and Technology - NTTU