Abstract
A dual-template approach is used to embed multilevel porosity into poly(ethersulfone) membranes prepared by non-solvent induced phase separation, leading to a 95% increase in permeability.
Highlights
Polymer membranes find application in a wide variety of fields from energy materials to water purification.[1,2,3,4,5,6] These applications often require a well-controlled internal pore structure in order to allow membrane properties such as pore connectivity and surface area to be finely tuned.[7]
Contact angle measurements showed that the PABA additive increases the hydrophilicity of the resultant membranes, while dead-end permeability measurements demonstrated that the hierarchical pore structure results in a 95% increase in permeability compared to a single level pore structure
The test samples exposed to ethanol extraction displayed a dramatically increased flow rate of 220 Æ 66 l (m2 h)À1, corresponding to a permeability of 31.2 Æ 9.37 nm[2], an increase of 300% over the compared to the test samples containing PABA
Summary
Polymer membranes find application in a wide variety of fields from energy materials to water purification.[1,2,3,4,5,6] These applications often require a well-controlled internal pore structure in order to allow membrane properties such as pore connectivity and surface area to be finely tuned.[7]. Cross-sectional analysis by SEM of the microstructure of the control sample reveals that the membrane is asymmetric (Fig. 3b); a skin layer, containing dense spherical pores on the nanometre scale, is observed on the top side that forms at the solution–water interface (Fig. 3c), which transitions into vertical finger-like macropores within the bulk membrane.
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