Scaling electrospray based additive manufacturing of polyamide membranes

• Published in: Journal of Membrane Science Letters Vol. 2; no. 2; p. 100035
• Main Authors: Ostwal, Mayur, Wazer, Edward, Pemberton, Marianne, McCutcheon, Jeffrey R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.11.2022; Elsevier
• Subjects: Additive manufacturing; Electrospray printing; Polyamide membranes; Scale up; Scale up; Polyamide membranes; Additive manufacturing; Electrospray printing
• ISSN: 2772-4212; 2772-4212
• DOI: 10.1016/j.memlet.2022.100035

•Polyamide were membranes fabricated using electrospray printing.•Electrospray printing technique scaled up by a factor of 10 over typical bench-scale.•Printed membrane leaves exceed 0.5 m2 in total area.•Consistent performance was measured across the leaf and between leaves. Additive manufacturing based on electrospray printing has been demonstrated to fabricate polyamide membranes with separation properties similar to commercial membranes while also offering exceptional control of membrane thickness and roughness. In this work, we report on the scalability of the electrospray process to produce membrane leaves that are 10 times the area of membranes fabricated in literature through electrospray printing. The large membrane leaves exhibited salt rejection of >90% (at 2000 ppm feed salt concentration) and ∼0.7 LMH/bar flux, which is comparable to smaller printed membranes using the same process. [Display omitted]