Fluoropolymer, with
its high chemical stability and hydrophobicity,
has great potential in applications involving organic solvents, e.g.,
organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN). An UV-curable fluorinated polymer,
perfluoropolyether (PFPE, Fluorolink AD1700), was coated and polymerized
onto a cross-linked polyimide substrate to modify its surface properties
for OSN. The PFPE coating can convert the hydrophilic substrate to
a hydrophobic membrane and narrow the pore size of the membrane to
make it suitable for OSN applications. Different coating concentrations,
ranging from 1 to 10 wt %, were applied, and the composite membranes
were characterized in various organic solvents (acetonitrile, ethanol,
isopropanol, and hexane). The permeances of these solvents were found
to be inversely proportional to the products of their viscosities
and molar volumes. The separation performance of the composite membrane
coated by 10 wt % PFPE exhibited rejections of >90% to orange II
sodium
salt (MW = 350.32 g·mol–1) and remazol brilliant
blue (MW = 626.54 g·mol–1) in isopropanol.
The 7-day tests were also conducted to (1) separate tetracycline from
ethanol/tetracycline solutions and (2) recover hexane from hexane/β-carotene
solutions. The fluxes and rejections of both membranes do not fluctuate
significantly during the 7-day continuous tests, with a performance
comparable with and superior to most literature data. Therefore, the
PFPE-coated membranes may have great potential to be next-generation
OSN membranes for industrial applications.