Study on Preparation and Performance of Modified Polyvinyl Chloride-co-vinyl Acetate Microfiltration Membranes

Abstract

In this paper, flat-sheet microfiltration membranes were prepared from modified polyvinyl chloride-vinyl acetate (VC-co-VAc) material with hydroxyl group, VC-co-VAc-OH, by phase inversion technique. The influences of casting solution composition (polymer concentration, additive types, and content) and preparation conditions (coagulation temperature, evaporation time of solvent, and the relative humidity in the environment) on pure water flux, retention, and pore size distribution were discussed. The results showed that casting solution composition and the membrane preparation conditions all have significant impacts on the performances of the membrane: on the one hand, in order to prepare membranes with high flux, either decrease the polymer concentration, or increase the PEG molecular weight or the coagulation temperature or the relative humidity can achieve it; on the other hand, with the increase of additive content, the pure water flux increased quickly, then decreased dramatically, while the effect of evaporation time were the opposite. And these results were confirmed by the SEM images. Furthermore, the microfiltration membranes, which were prepared under optimized conditions, were used to treat synthetic oilfield polymer-flooding wastewater, and good experimental results were obtained.