Porous chitosan membranes by solvent evaporation technique: evaluation of the biopolymer/acetone ratio and potentiality for the membrane distillation process

ABSTRACT

Chitosan is a biopolymer and with proper preparation conditions could be promising for membrane distillation. Based on the current environment-based initiatives, in this work, a chitosan porous membrane was synthesized. The effect of chitosan on the presence of acetone at different concentrations was evaluated and FTIR showed acetamido groups and changes in the degree of deacetylation. The membrane was characterized by water uptake, porosity, and microstructure. It presented moderate hydrophobic behavior and porosities (62%−92%) with slit-like pores. The membrane distillation demonstrated the use of membrane produced with permeate flux (16.07–51.62 kg.m⁻².h⁻¹).

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Acetone
• biopolymer-based membranes
• deacetylation
• hydrophobic membrane
• membrane distillation
• solvent evaporation

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Brazil, finance code 01) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Brazil) for their financial support. Also, the authors are grateful to the Laboratório Central de Microscopia Eletrônica of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (LCME-UFSC) for the FEG-SEM images.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interest or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this work.

Data availability statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are included within the article and its Supplementary material.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/25740881.2023.2258416.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior .

Notes on contributors

Angelo Oliveira Silva

Angelo Silva obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in 2022, currently enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow at the same university focusing his career on porous materials, biopolymers, and membrane materials development.

Ricardo Sousa Cunha

Ricardo Sousa Cunha is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering at the same Federal University of Santa Catarina with a research interest in nanotechnology, water treatment, and sustainability.

Regilene de Sousa Silva

Regilene de Sousa Silva obtained her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in 2023, focusing her research on the membrane separation process, membrane development, and advanced oxidative processes.

Cintia Marangoni

Cintia Marangoni is currently working as an adjunct professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina where act in the fields of chemical engineering and industrial process with an emphasis on separation process.

Dachamir Hotza

Dachamir Hotza is a full professor and senior researcher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. He does research in Chemical Engineering and Materials Engineering. His current interests are nanotechnology and sustainability.

Ricardo Machado

Ricardo Machado is a full professor of Chemical and Food Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina acting in the industrial process fields of chemical engineering, applied research, development, and teaching.