Abstract
The performance of membrane filtrations are mostly determined by pore structure of the fabricated membrane. Selection of polymer and solvent in membrane preparation are influence the morphology of fabricated membrane. The present work discusses the morphology of PES membrane fabricated from different polymer system with constant preparation condition. Polymer system consists of 15 wt% of polyethersulfone (PES) and 85 wt% of solvents. The homogeneous solution includes of PES-dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), PES-dimethylformamide (DMF), and PES-N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP). The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of the types of solvent on the formed membrane morphology. Phase inversion technique is used to solidify the flat sheet membrane in deionized water as a coagulation bath. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the morphology of membrane. A dead-end ultrafiltration module was carried out to observe the filtration performance of the fabricated membrane. It is proved that the different membrane solution affect the membrane structure in term of skin layer, macrovoid, and support layer. Furthermore, the changing of the membrane structure affected the pure water permeability (PWP). It is found that the highest PWP was reached up to 4.52 L/m2.hr.atm using PES-DMSO system.
Highlights
Polyethersulfone (PES) is one of the polymer membranes often used in water purification process
Many researchers are more attracted to investigate the modification of membrane morphology in various techniques
When the membrane film was immersed into the coagulation bath, the NMP and DMF solvent in the membrane has a lower affinity towards the water as a non solvent than dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)
Summary
Polyethersulfone (PES) is one of the polymer membranes often used in water purification process. Several factors affecting the result of fabricated membrane are polymer composition, solvent concentration, and gelation nature [4]. This article discusses the morphology of PES membrane prepared using three different solvents, those are N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and dimethylformamide (DMF). The exchange of solvent from membrane solution to nonsolvent in coagulation bath lead a formation of polymer rich phases resulted in a porous membrane [5]. The exchange rate and interaction between solvents and nonsolvent result different structure of PES membrane. Arthanareeswaran and Starov [5] investigate the impact of different solvents on PES membrane fabrication. The result showed the PES-DMSO system has thinner top layer and big macrovoid structures. Hasbullah et al [6]
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