Abstract
The design of a porous membrane support layer derived from cocontinuous polymer blends is presented. We investigate the effect of blend composition, shear rate, residence time, and annealing time on the cocontinuous morphology of polyethylene (PE)/poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) blends. Porous PE sheets were generated by water extraction of PEO and used as a support layer for gas separation membranes. The PE/PEO blends using nonfunctional and maleic anhydride functional PE (PE-g-MA) were mixed in a batch microcompounder and in a pilot plant scale corotating twin-screw extruder. Using PE-g-MA resulted in pore size reduction from 10 to 2 μm and suppression of coarsening of the morphology during further annealing of the blends due to formation of PE–PEO graft copolymers. Equilibrium interfacial tension, estimated by fitting the rheology of droplet blends to the Palierne viscoelastic droplet model, was 3 and 0.4 mN/m for PE/PEO and PE-g-MA/PEO systems, respectively. The specific interfacial area and phase size dis...
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.