High-performance pervaporation desalination membrane prepared via interfacial polymerization with dual acyl chloride monomer

Polyamide pervaporation membranes, with excellent stability and resist swelling at high temperatures, enable superior capacity for high-salinity solutions compared to other pervaporation membranes. However, the low permeate flux impedes their technical realization for large-scale applications. Here, we prepared a pervaporation membrane based on a 5-sulfinyl amino isophthaloyl dichloride (NSO) monomer. NSO contains a sulfinamide group, which can be used as an acid-binding agent to combine with H + to promote the interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction, thus inhibiting the growth of the polyamide layer and leading to the formation of a thinner separation layer. In addition, the sulfinamide group is converted to an amino group during the IP process, which can continue to participate in the IP reaction and further enhance the cross-linking degree of the separation layer. The resulting ultrathin and highly crosslinked polyamide pervaporation membranes show exceptional performance in pervaporation desalination, achieving a pervaporation flux of 50.54 kg m −2  h −1 and a rejection of 99.99% when measured with 3.5 wt% NaCl solution as feed. NSO monomer presents a promising pathway to overcome the limitations of pervaporation desalination membranes, advancing the application potential of polyamide membranes for practical high-salt wastewater treatment.