Mesoporous organosilica membranes: Effects of pore geometry and calcination conditions on the membrane distillation performance for desalination

• Organosilica membranes with different pore sizes were made via soft-templating. • Calcination atmospheres influenced surface chemistry but not bulk hydrophobicity. • F127 templated membranes gave higher fluxes in MD but suffered from pore wetting.

Organosilica membranes were successfully synthesized by using triblock copolymer Pluronic F68 and F127 to yield different pore sizes, ranging from 2 to 12.9 nm, and pore geometries, cubic and cage-like cubic mesophases, respectively. The surface chemistry of the organosilica membranes heat treated under different atmospheres Table 2 Performance comparison of MD membranes for desalination. Membrane type Feed salt conc. (wt.%) Feed temp. (°C) Lower/higher Water flux (kg m−2 h−1) Lower/higher Rejection (wt.%) Lower/higher Ref Microporous–inorganic Zeolite MFI-S1 SiO2 carbonised C16 Hybrid SiO2 SiO2 metal doped 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 20–75 20–75 1–5.1 2.1 1.7 0.4–1.2 99.9–99.2