Abstract
The way in which a perforated structure is formed has attracted much interest in the porous membrane research community. This novel structure gives materials an excellent antifouling property as well as a low operating pressure and other benefits. Unfortunately, the current membrane fabrication methods usually involve multi-step processes and the use of organic solvents or additives. Our study is the first to offer a way to prepare perforated membrane by using a physical foaming technique with CO2 as the blowing agent. We selected thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) as the base material because it is a biocompatible elastomer with excellent tensility, high abrasion resistance, and good elastic resilience. Various processing parameters, which included the saturation pressure, the foaming temperature, and the membrane thickness, were applied to adjust the TPU membrane’s perforated morphology. We proposed a possible formation mechanism of the perforated membrane. The as-prepared TPU membrane had good mechanical properties with a tensile strength of about 5 MPa and an elongation at break above 100%. Such mechanical properties make this novel membrane usable as a self-standing filter device. In addition, its straight-through channel structure can separate particles and meet different separation requirements.
Highlights
A porous structure within a polymeric membrane plays significant roles in such filtration areas as cell separation [1], water purification [2,3], gas filtration [4], battery separation [5], cell harvesting [6], and filtrate collection [7]
As the saturation pressure was further increased to 4.0 MPa, a conventional closed-cell structure was formed inside the membrane because too many cells generated
These results strongly indicate that a saturation pressure of below 3.0 MPa would be necessary to form a desirable single-row cell structure to make a perforated membrane when the corresponding surface after the foaming process
Summary
A porous structure within a polymeric membrane plays significant roles in such filtration areas as cell separation [1], water purification [2,3], gas filtration [4], battery separation [5], cell harvesting [6], and filtrate collection [7]. Multiple scientific and engineering methods have been used to enhance the membrane’s antifouling property in the application process Among these investigations, it was found that a perforated structure gave the material an excellent antifouling property [12]. It’s well known that the physical foaming process is a high-efficiency technique to prepare porous materials, and it has enormous advantages. This is because it is both environmentally-friendly, cost-effective, and its features are straightforward [19,20]. In our study, which makes use of the heterogeneous nucleation effect on the polymeric material’s surface, we have presented a novel way to prepare perforated membrane. In the last part of our paper, we discuss the influences of cell structures on the filtration function with separation of the polystyrene microsphere
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