An economical and simple method for preparing highly permeable and chlorine-resistant reverse osmosis membranes with potential commercial applications.

The improvement in the overall efficiency of thin-film composite (TFC) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes is limited by their low permeability and sensitivity to degradation by chlorine. In the present study, polypiperazine (PIP), the commonly used amine monomer in preparing commercial TFC nanofiltration (NF) membranes, was used to regulate the -phenylenediamine (MPD) based interfacial polymerization (IP) process. The results showed that addition of PIP optimized the micro-structure and surface properties of the polyamide (PA) layer.