Abstract
Polyethersulphone (PES) was a hydrophobilic material. In order to use the Polyethersulphone (PES) membrane on highly hydrophobic membrane separation process, the PES membrane should be improved its hydrophobicity. In this paper, the super-hydrophobic PES membrane was successfully fabricated via sol-gel method. The chemical composition and the physical micro-structure of fabricated PES membrane surface were analyzed by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometers (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The results showed that the PES membrane was super-hydrophobic, and its contact angle was 154°. The super-hydrophobic PES membrane has the low surface energy matters and the micro/nano-meter protuberance on the membrane surface. Those micro/nano-meter protuberances on membrane’s surface contributed for an rms roughness, which was about 350 nm. From the SEM images of the membrane cross-section, the spongy pores and the finger-like pores were found in cortex and intermediate layer, respectively.
Highlights
Wettability is one of the primary surface properties of solid materials, which is mainly governed by both the chemical composition and the geometrical microstructure
The hydrophobilic PES membrane was treated by sol-gel, the wettability changed from weak hydrophobilic to super-hydrophobic
Comparing to the based membrane, its contact angle was increased by ~79°
Summary
Wettability is one of the primary surface properties of solid materials, which is mainly governed by both the chemical composition and the geometrical microstructure. The phenomenon of super-hydrophobicity was investigated by Wilhelm Barthlott in detail 10 years ago (Barthlott W., 1997, pp.1-8) He found that the water contact angle of lotus-leaf was more than 150°. PES membrane, which can be fabricated by phase inversion method, used to microfiltration, ultra-filtration, dialysis and gas separation membrane process. Many significant techniques have been developed to fabricate the super-hydrophobic membrane, including plasma polymerization (Wang, 2006, pp.5493-5497), molding or template-based method (Feng, 2003, pp.800802 and Luke, 2006, pp.3024-3028), electro-spinning (Kanga, 2008, pp.411-414), vapor deposition (Ma, 2005, pp.9742-9748 and Kanga, 2008, pp.411-414), phase separation (Ma, 2006, pp.39-42), etching (Narita, 2000, pp.594-597), Sol-gel method (Satoh, 2003, pp.327-332) and so on(Shi, 2005, pp.1005-1009 and Han, 2005, pp.20773-20778). SEM, AFM, XPS and ATR-IR indicated that the upmost layer exhibited both micro-structured surfaces and enriched fluorine
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