The evaluation of thin film composite membrane composed of an electrospun polyacrylonitrile nanofibrous mid-layer for separating oil–water mixture

Abstract

Conventional ultrafiltration (UF) membranes, which are fabricated by phase inversion method, have relatively low amount of flux rate. To overcome this limitation, a new type of thin film composite (TFC) membrane was manufactured and tested in the current study. This membrane has composed of a nonwoven Polyester (PET) support, an electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibrous mid-layer, and a Polysulfone (PSF) composite coating top layer. In order to investigate the reliability of the TFC membrane, its performance for separating an oil/water emulsion was compared with an asymmetric UF membrane. The UF membrane was fabricated by phase inversion method from a PSF solution with Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as additive and 1 to 2% cellulose acetate (CA) as hydrophilic agent. The efficiencies of flux and rejection of both types of membranes were accurately determined and compared at various operating pressures. In general, the pure water fluxes of TFC membrane showed rises of 20 to 160% in comparison with PSF asymmetric membrane. The results also indicated that with the application of TFC membrane, the efficiency of rejection was averagely picked up by 2%.