Development of novel ion exchange membranes for fouling resistant electrodialysis in biobased application

In the near future, there will be an increase of interest in the production of chemicals from plant biomass. This production process however, is not optimized yet. After pre-treating the plant mass, some compounds have to be removed before it can be further processed. In the end of the production process, the different valuable compounds have to be separated. Electrodialysis, a membrane separation process in which charged compounds are transported, can be applied in both cases to remove the compounds of interest. However, contemporary membranes are still sensitive to fouling, which decreases the efficiency of separation and subsequently increases the cost of production. This research aims at solving this issue. In the first step, characterization of organic compounds that cause fouling will be analyzed to understand which compounds are the major foulants. Secondly, ion exchange membranes will be modified by implementing the layer by layer (LBL) coating technique using polyelectrolytes. LBL technique will be helpful in increasing zeta potential, hydrophilicity and limit the area of electrical resistance of organic fouled membranes and subsequently act as anti fouling sacrificial layer for organic foulants such as acetic acid, furfural, hydroxyl methyl furfural and some carboxylic acids.