Pharmaceutical, chemical, and food industries are actively implementing
membrane nanofiltration modules in their processes to separate valuable
products and recover solvents. Interfacial polymerization (IP) is the
most widely used method to produce thin-film composite membranes for
nanofiltration and reverse osmosis processes. Although membrane
processes are considered green and environmentally friendly, membrane
fabrication has still to be further developed in such direction. For
instance, the emission of volatile solvents during membrane production
in the industry has to be carefully controlled for health reasons.
Greener solvents are being proposed for phase-separation membrane
manufacture. For the IP organic phase, the proposition of greener
alternatives is in an early stage. In this work, we demonstrate the
preparation of a high-performing composite membrane employing zero vapor
pressure and naturally extracted oleic acid as the IP organic phase.
Its long hydrophobic chain ensures intrinsic low volatility and acid
monomer dissolution, while the polar head induces a unique self-assembly
structure during the film formation. Membranes prepared by this
technique were selective for small molecules with a molecular weight
cutoff of 650 g mol–1 and a high permeance of ∼57 L m–2 h–1 bar–1.