In this study, oleic acid was used to functionalize carbon nanotubes (CNTs), successfully. Then, a novel composite membrane was fabricated by coating of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) solution containing oleic acid-functionalized CNTs on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) support membrane for use in vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) process. The coating process was performed using vacuum filtration method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis and water contact angle (WCA) measurement were used to characterize the functionalized CNTs and the fabricated membranes. Effects of the functionalized CNTs loading on membrane performance were investigated. It was found that compared to the PTFE/carboxylated CNTs composite membrane, the PTFE/oleic acid-functionalized CNTs composite membrane with WCA of about 133.2° shows better performance (higher permeation flux and salt rejection), in lower CNTs loading. Taguchi method was applied to design a minimum number of experiments to investigate the effects of some operating parameters including feed temperature, feed concentration and feed flow rate on the membrane performance. The optimum conditions were obtained as: temperature of 70 °C, concentration of 10,000 ppm and flow rate of 150 LPH. This work demonstrated that the fabricated PTFE/oleic acid-functionalized CNTs composite membrane is a suitable candidate to achieve high water flux (89 LMH) and salt rejection (99.45% which is 30% higher than unmodified PTFE membrane) in the VMD process.

在这项研究中，成功​​地将油酸用于功能化碳纳米管（CNT）。然后，通过将包含油酸官能化的CNT的聚偏二氟乙烯（PVDF）溶液涂覆在聚四氟乙烯（PTFE）支撑膜上，以用于真空膜蒸馏（VMD）工艺中，来制备新型复合膜。使用真空过滤方法进行涂覆过程。使用扫描电子显微镜（SEM），透射电子显微镜（TEM），傅立叶变换红外光谱（FTIR），拉曼光谱，原子力显微镜（AFM）分析和水接触角（WCA）测量来表征功能化的CNT和碳纳米管。人造膜。研究了官能化的CNT负载量对膜性能的影响。发现与PTFE /羧化CNTs复合膜相比，WCA约为133.2°的PTFE /油酸官能化CNTs复合膜在较低的CNTs负载下表现出更好的性能（更高的渗透通量和脱盐率）。Taguchi方法用于设计最少数量的实验，以研究某些操作参数（包括进料温度，进料浓度和进料流速）对膜性能的影响。获得的最佳条件为：温度为70°C，浓度为10,000 ppm，流速为150 LPH。这项工作表明，所制造的PTFE /油酸官能化CNTs复合膜是在VMD工艺中实现高水通量（89 LMH）和脱盐率（99.45％，比未改性PTFE膜高30％）的合适候选者。