Study of the performance in Membrane Distillation of PVDF membranes prepared with green solvents and specific coatings

Membrane Distillation (MD) is a process that can be successfully used for the treatment of industrial wastewater, but the membranes employed must have specific requirements in order to avoid problems of interaction between the feed species and the membrane surface, and consequently wetting phenomena. This aspect becomes particularly important when the membranes used are prepared with solvents defined <green= to replace the traditional toxic solvents. Based on the above considerations, the work presents a study on the performance of membrane distillation, in terms of distillate flux, when flat PVDF membranes, prepared via phase inversion with a specific green solvent (γ-Valerolactone-GVL) and using a particular coating (to reduce wetting issues), are employed. A comparison with the performance of PVDF commercial membranes (both coated and uncoated) is also includ