Development of MoS2-TiO2/ PVDF-based hollow fibre membranes for membrane distillation desalination / Nurul Syazana Fuzil

Membrane distillation (MD) is a hybrid system that combines membrane technology with thermal distillation, which has recently emerged as one of the technologies used for seawater desalination. However, MD faced several limitations that hamper its comprehensive utilization for clean water production, such as low desalination efficiency and temperature polarization. In this study, a series of MoS2-TiO2/PVDF membranes were fabricated to improve the performance of MD desalination. The MoS2-TiO2 composite was first synthesized using a one-step hydrothermal with different ratios then the fabrication of PVDF-based hollow fibre membrane was fabricated with varied air gap and additional of polyethersulfone (PES) and finally the surface modification of PVDF-based hollow fibre membrane was done where MoS2-TiO2was mixed with trichloro(octadecyl)silane in (OTS) for the dip coating process in the fabrication of MoS2-TiO2/PVDF-based membranes. After that that, the XRD, FTIR, TGA, UV-vis, TEM and BET characterization for composite and 5M5T MoS2-TiO2 (50 wt% MoS2 and 50 wt% TiO2) was chosen for surface modification due to its narrow band gap. After the porosity, contact angle, SEM, and mechanical strength analysis, the PVDF-PES which is the fabricated hollow fibre membrane at a 20 cm air gap with the additional of PES (PP20) was found to have better properties and suitable to be used as support for MD application due to its high porosity and low membrane thickness.