Performance enhancement of polysulfone ultrafiltration membrane by blending with polyurethane hydrophilic polymer

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the effect of two solvents such as N , N ′ -dimethylformamide (DMF) and dimethylacetamide (DMAc) used in the production of polysulfone (PSf) and polyurethane (PU) blend ultrafi ltration membranes, infl uence permeability and selectivity. PSf/PU membranes were prepared by the phase inversion method using polymer concentrations of 100/0, 20/80 and 0/100 wt % . Permeation performance of the prepared membranes was evaluated in terms of pure water fl ux, water content and hydraulic resistance. It was found that the membrane composed of 20/80 wt % of PSf/PU in the presence of DMAc showed a water fl ux of 60.5 l m -2 h -1 under transmembrane pressure of 345 kPa, and the water fl ux of 23.5 l m -2 h -1 for 20/80 wt % of PSf/PU in the presence of DMF. With increasing the polarity of DMAc in the casting solution, an increase in porous layer thickness was observed, and then a good water fl ux of membranes can be obtained. It was found that the polar solvent caused the rapidly demixing of casting solution in coagulation bath and formed porous asymmetric membranes with defective skin layer. The permeation rates of proteins were measured with different molecular weights of the proteins.

Investigation of the Use of a Bio-Derived Solvent for Non-Solvent-Induced Phase Separation (NIPS) Fabrication of Polysulfone Membranes

“…The higher rejection rate of PSf/PolarClean membranes agreed their sponge-like pore structures as shown in Figure 7 b. In addition to comparing the performance of PSf/PolarClean membranes fabricated here to the performance of PSf/DMAc membranes fabricated using similar controlled conditions, a comparison was made to literature PSf/DMAc membranes [ 2 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 ], and is shown in Table 4 . It is important to note that evaporation times were not available for membranes from the literature.…”

Development of ZSM-22/Polyethersulfone Membrane for Effective Salt Rejection

“…They have gained widespread use in microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) membranes, but showed poor performance in extremely high pressurised systems such as nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) [17][18][19]. Their relatively poor performance in NF and RO systems is attributed by some in the literature to their weak mechanical stability as a consequence of their high amorphous and lower hydrophilic character [20][21][22][23]. As a result, PES membrane utilisation in NF/RO application is highly prone to fouling, which is considered the main limitation to the use of PES membranes in highly pressurised separation processes [23][24][25][26].…”

“…As such, research on polymeric membrane material and membrane technology maintained its focus on membrane modification to produce materials with intrinsic composite features [2,[35][36][37]. This involves a straightforward process of conjoining or blending polymeric material with hydrophilic nanoadditives such as nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes and zeolites [1,23,38,39]. Typically, zeolite materials have demonstrated the ability to enhance membranes' water flux, permeability and antifouling characteristics, as reported in several studies [40,41].…”

Development of urea formaldehyde and polystyrene waste as copolymer binder for emulsion paint formulation

“…Polymer blends are made to maintain a proper cost performance ratio and reinforcement of properties, which is compensation of the demerits of a polymer by blending it with a second one that is rich in the aspects lagging in the initial one. The technology of blending is now moving at a rapid pace and blending technology is also proving to be of use in plastics recycling (Arthanareeswana et al, 2011;Bhattacharya et al, 2009). An up-cycling of the post consumer blend wastes for value-added goals remains a challenge for the scientific community.…”