Quaternary ammonium modified polyamide nanofiltration membranes for effective lithium recovery from battery leachate
摘要
Nanofiltration (NF) membranes hold significant value in industrial wastewater treatment and resource recovery. This is due to their nanoscale pore size and charge-selective mechanism. In lithium-ion battery recycling, electrode leachates contain lithium sulfate and divalent metal sulfates.To achieve selective separation of these components, a novel composite NF membrane was prepared. The preparation involves synergistic grafting modification using quaternary ammonium compound and glycerol ether both containing the epoxy group. The findings indicate that aldehyde compounds can suppress the diffusion of polyamines. Consequently, the polyamide separation layer retains more unreacted amine groups. This can promote crosslinking with epoxy groups and achieve high-density grafting of quaternary ammonium compound. As a result, the positive charge density on the NF membrane surface is enhanced. Meanwhile, the crosslinking of glycidyl ether reduces the intermolecular pore size of the selective layer. Through the synergistic effect of charge and pore size, the developed NF membrane exhibits high rejection rates of Mn/Ni/CoSO4 higher than 90%, while the rejection rate of Li2SO4 remains below 50%. Accordingly, the separation factors for these components exceed 10. This NF membrane featuring a simple fabrication process, facilitates scalable production and exhibits broad application prospects in the resource recovery from lithium-ion batteries.