Abstract
Tamisolve® NxG, a well-known non-toxic solvent, was used for poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes preparation via a non-solvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) procedure with water as a coagulation bath. Preliminary investigations, related to the study of the physical/chemical properties of the solvent, the solubility parameters, the gel transition temperature and the viscosity of the polymer–solvent system, confirmed the power of the solvent to solubilize PVDF polymer for membranes preparation. The role of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and/or poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), as pore former agents in the dope solution, was studied along with different polymer concentrations (10 wt%, 15 wt% and 18 wt%). The produced membranes were then characterized in terms of morphology, thickness, porosity, contact angle, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Pore size measurements, pore size distribution and water permeability (PWP) tests placed the developed membranes in the ultrafiltration (UF) and microfiltration (MF) range. Finally, PVDF membrane performances were investigated in terms of rejection (%) and permeability recovery ratio (PRR) using methylene blue (MB) in water solution to assess their potential application in separation and purification processes.
Highlights
On 14 October 2020, the European Commission (EC) divulged a new long-term “Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability” [1], perfectly integrated to the European Green Deal [2], which has been conceived as the guiding principle behind the European chemical industrial innovation
In order to investigate the thermodynamics of membrane preparations and the interaction between polymer, solvent and non-solvent, Hansen solubility parameters (HSP) were considered
The low rejection of this membrane is related to the high pore size of the membrane bar
Summary
On 14 October 2020, the European Commission (EC) divulged a new long-term “Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability” [1], perfectly integrated to the European Green Deal [2], which has been conceived as the guiding principle behind the European chemical industrial innovation. Over time, special emphasis has been devoted to membrane technology, which allows to perform separation processes fully respecting the environment integrity and worker health [7,8,9,10,11]. Membranes, both organic and inorganic, are commercially viable and widely used in the most different and disparate sectors, including pharmaceutical and biotechnological fields [8,12,13,14,15]. All the limitations geared towards the correct use of the solvent, are finely described in the guideline released by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) on July
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