Polymer solutions of polysulfone (PSf) and methylcellulose (MC) in 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) were used to prepare ultrafiltration membranes by the phase inversion technique via immersion precipitation. The effect of MC additive on the structure and performances of the membranes was studied. The obtained membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), equilibrium water content (EWC), water contact angle, porosity and ultrafiltration experiments of polyethylene glycol solutions. It was found that all the PSf/MC membranes had higher porosity, more hydrophilic surface and more vertically finger like pores than PSf membrane. With an increase in MC content in the casting solution from 0.5% to 1.5%, the hydraulic permeability increases from 17.17 to 118.46 L.m -2 .h -1 .bar -1 , while the rejection decreases from 91.82% to 64.45% with PEG 35000. DSC scan and FTIR analysis confirmed that methylcellulose was trapped in the membranes matrix.
A B S T R AC TOne of the most signifi cant environmental diffi culties arising in textile industry is that of the rejection of water with great chemical load in important quantities, and one of the steps that generate pollution by increasing the COD of the textile industry effl uent is the desizing step. Thus, the use of methods, which need weak chemical addition, such as ultrafi ltration combined to a targeted selection of the sizing agents enables to reduce signifi cantly the environmental impact of the desizing step of textile treatment engineering. Moreover, the wastewater rejected after the stage of desizing contains of valuable materials such as the carboxymethylcellulose and the poly(vinyl alcohol), which do not undergo notable changes in their physical properties nor their chemical properties during the processes of sizing and desizing. In fact, these two water-soluble polymers are more and more massively used in textile industry to replace the starch, which remains the most used natural sizing agent. The main objective of this paper is to expose experimental results obtained for several ultrafi ltration polyethersulfone membranes employed in the removal of poly(vinyl alcohol) and carboxymethylcellulose from aqueous solutions, and to discuss the effi ciency of enzymatic degradation of carboxymethylcellulose applied to treat the obtained ultrafi ltrate and as well to clean the fouled membranes.
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