Polymeric Materials for Membrane Contactor Devices Applied to Water Treatment by Ozonation

• Published in: Materials research (São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil) Vol. 18; no. 5; pp. 1015 - 1022
• Main Authors: dos Santos, Felipe Rodrigues Alves, Borges, Cristiano Piacsek, da Fonseca, Fabiana Valeria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Portuguese; Spanish
• Published: ABM, ABC, ABPol 01.10.2015; Associação Brasileira de Metalurgia e Materiais (ABM); Associação Brasileira de Cerâmica (ABC); Associação Brasileira de Polímeros (ABPol)
• Subjects: Carbon-carbon composites; Contactors; Devices; ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL; MATERIALS SCIENCE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY; membrane contactor; Membranes; METALLURGY & METALLURGICAL ENGINEERING; Ozone; polymer degradation; Polypropylenes; Thermal properties; Water treatment; polymer degradation; water treatment; ozone; membrane contactor
• ISSN: 1516-1439; 1980-5373; 1516-1439; 1980-5373
• DOI: 10.1590/1516-1439.016715

In water treatment process ozone is applied to disinfection and to remove organic pollutants. Membrane contactor devices are used as a physical barrier to separate two fluids without phase dispersion and it can be used to improve the ozonation efficiency. Polymeric materials are used in membrane contactors and they can react with ozone, suffering degradation and losing its mechanical properties. In this work, commercial polymeric membranes were selected to investigate their interaction with ozone in gaseous phase. It was evaluated changes in polymer structures and in membrane morphology by FTIR, DSC, TGA and SEM. It was observed preferential ozone attack to double carbon-carbon bonds in the main polymer chain for polyimide and polysulphone membranes. Polypropylene has single carbon-carbon bonds and its reaction with ozone was less intensive. For polydimethylsiloxane membranes the ozone attack seems to occur in the carbon-silicon bond, leading to loss of mechanical and thermal properties.