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Abstract
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The novel nanocomposite membranes were successfully prepared by the incorporaton of different
concentratons (5, 10, and 15 wt%) of montmorillonite (MMT) as a nanoadditve into a blend of chitosan/
polystyrene (CS/PS) at a rato of 3:1 on the basis of soluton-castng method and they were subsequently
used for the separaton of phenol, p-chlorophenol, and 2,4-dichlorophenol from water through
pervaporaton process. The effects of feed compositon, the MMT content, and various feed types were
investgated on pervaporaton performance. All the membranes were water selectve and the permeaton
rate increased with increasing the MMT content. The presence of MMT, increased the hydrophilicity of CS/
PS blend polymer matrix, resultng in the formaton of a higher flux to water molecules. The best separaton
performance was achieved for the CS/PSMMT-15 nanocomposite membrane containing a 15 wt % of
MMT with 2,4-dichlorophenol in the feed, i.e., the 2,4-dichlorophenol concentraton from 0.1 to 0.4 wt
%, the flux values from 10.7 to 14.2 g/m2.h and the separaton factor from 1784 to 721. The separaton of
2,4-dichlorophenol/water mixture proceeded easier than that of the phenol/water and p-chlorophenol/
water mixtures because of the larger molecular size of 2,4-dichlorophenol and the relatvely weak coupling
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