Fabrication of polyimide hollow fiber membrane with well‐defined adsorption channels and binding sites for organics separation

Abstract

Significant attention has been focused in developing polymeric membranes with special separation function. Disclosed herein is the design of a solvent resistant hollow fiber membrane with multi architectures including self‐supported passageway, three‐dimensional adsorption channels, and binding sites for organics sulfur. A new strategy has been proposed for high‐performance polyimide hollow fiber membranes by tuning the imidization behavior. The evolution of structure and performance with the proposed imidization routes has been investigated based on detailed analysis of FT‐IR, TGA, and mechanical properties. The results show that the functional zeolites are incorporated into three‐dimensional polyimide matrix. The well‐defined transport channels at micrometer scale in membrane provide high‐efficiency working space. The effective binding behavior of designed hollow fiber membrane chromatography for organic sulfur compounds has been confirmed by the comparative analysis on dynamic breakthrough curves. The related discussions have some general suggestions in promoting the new application of membrane chromatography for the quick separation and purification of sulfur, and present a potential alternative for the production of sulfur‐free hydrogen source for fuel cell applications. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:1024–1032, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers

Experimental investigation of fibroin content in polymethyl methacrylate‐based membranes for removal of heavy metals in aqueous solutions

“…The silk cocoon consists of 70%-80% of fibroin. 9 Membrane properties such as hydrophilicity, surface roughness, pore profile, PWF, and so on can be further improved by blending fibroin with natural or synthetic polymers like polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), 10 polyimide, 11 cellulose acetate, 12,13 chitosan, 14 and polyacrylic acid. 15 Gao et al 16 synthesized a novel biomaterial-based membrane by using SF modified with a Schiff base.…”