FORMULATION OF HYBRID MEMBRANE LAYER BY USING PVA/CHITOSAN BLENDED POLYMERS ON POROUS POLYSULFONE SUPPORT, AND THE APPLICATION ON COPPER ION REMOVAL

Abstract

In this study, a thin film composite membrane was fabricated by using hybrid membrane as the barrier layer and polysulfone membrane as base membrane. During the formulation of hybrid membrane, a polymer blend of polyvinyl alcohol with chitosan was chosen as organic polymer and it was cross-linked with tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), where sol gel method is used to prepare the hybrid membrane. Phase inversion method is used to prepare the base membrane. The aim of this study is to determine the optimum concentration of the polymer for porous support membrane as well as the concentration of chitosan and TEOS in the fabrication of the thin film composite. Four concentrations of polysulfone (PSF) solution was prepared (13wt%, 14wt%, 15wt% and 17wt %) and the optimum concentration was determined. For the hybrid membrane, concentration of chitosan solution was varied at1wt%, 2wt% and 3wt% with fixed concentration of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution (10wt %). Results showed that 2wt% chitosan and 13 wt% PSF is sufficient to remove acceptable percentage of copper ion. For this purpose of identifying optimum amount of TEOS, pH of the feed copper ion solution was adjusted to three conditions (pH 3, 7, 10). Although, the percentage removal is highest at pH 10 but when dealing with natural integrated complexation method, pH 7 is found to be the optimum pH for the removal of copper ion. Besides that, 3 wt% TEOS in hybrid membrane has found to give a remarkable percentage removal of copper ion. Overall, a new formulation of thin film composite membrane show a great potential to compete with those commercial membrane in thin film composite membrane application especially separation process.