Solvent‐resistant polymeric microfiltration membranes based on oxidized electrospun poly(arylene sulfide sulfone) nanofibers

Abstract

ABSTRACTPolymeric membranes have been widely used in the separation of aqueous system, but there were few studies on the organic solvent‐resistant microfiltration (MF) membranes. In this study, organic solvent‐resistant oxidized poly(arylene sulfide sulfone)‐6 (O‐PASS‐6) nanofibrous MF membrane with high water flux was prepared through electrospun technology, cold‐press, and oxidation treatment. The O‐PASS‐6 nanofibrous MF membrane was made from the interwoven electrospun uniformly 295 nm nanofibers, and the mean pore size was 0.44 μm. The morphology, chemical structure, and aggregation structure of O‐PASS‐6 nanofibrous MF membrane were characterized systematically by the scanning electron microscope, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction. Investigations on the weight loss, swelling ratio, and microstructure change all revealed that the O‐PASS‐6 membrane had superior stability in strong polar solvents, such as 1,3‐dimethyl‐2‐imidazolidinone (DMI), dimethylformamide (DMF), and tetrahydrofuran (THF). MF performance results showed that the pure water flux of O‐PASS‐6 nanofibrous membrane was up to 753.34 L·m−2·h−1, and the rejection ratio was 99.9% to 0.2 μm particles. More importantly, after treated by aggressive solvents, the membranes still possessed good MF performance: the water flux was 770.08, 775.66, and 766.36 L·m−2·h−1 when soaked in DMI, DMF, and THF for 7 days, respectively, and high rejection ratio also maintained (>99%) for both particles investigated. The O‐PASS‐6 membrane with good solvent resistance proved to be a promising candidate as a prefiltration membrane to eliminate submicron particles in both sewage and aggressive solvents. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020, 137, 48506.