Abstract
We have developed stable organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes that are electrically conductive. These membranes overcome key issues with current tuneable membranes: molecular weight cut off (MWCO) limited to the UF-range and lack of filtration stability. Polyaniline (PANI) was in-situ doped by poly(2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid) (PAMPSA) using chemical oxidative polymerization that leads to formation of interpolymer complex. The PANI-PAMPSA membranes were prepared by phase inversion method and the pore sizes were shrunk by annealing the membranes at temperatures lower than the crosslinking temperature. The membranes were systematically evaluated using visual and chemical analysis and in-filtration experiments. The developed membranes were solvent stable, reusable, had a denser structure and lower MWCO and there was no thermal crosslinking as seen by IR. The solvent permeance obtained were: 0.46, 0.60 and 0.74 Lm −2 h −1 bar −1 for acetone, 2-propanol and methanol respectively, with MWCO below 300 Da and 266 Da for methanol. For the tuneability investigation, when applying an electrical potential (20 V) in a custom-made cross-flow membrane cell, an increase in MWCO and permeance (10.4% and 55.6%, respectively) was observed. These results show that this simple in-situ doping method with heat treatment can produce promising and stable PANI membranes, for OSN processes in different solvents, with the distinctive feature of in-situ performance control by applying external electrical potential.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 11-21 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Membrane Science |
Volume | 579 |
Early online date | 15 Feb 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2019 |
Funding
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant TUNEMEM (Project reference: 646769 ; funded under H2020-EU.1.1.-EXCELLENT SCIENCE ). Adem Sarihan thanks the “ Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) BIDEB-2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Programme” for financial support. The authors thank the technician team at the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Physics, the University of Bath for technical support. Appendix A
Keywords
- Electrical tuneable membranes
- Heat treatment
- Organic solvent nanofiltration
- Polyaniline
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biochemistry
- General Materials Science
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
- Filtration and Separation
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Emma Emanuelsson Patterson
- Department of Chemical Engineering - Senior Lecturer
- Reaction and Catalysis Engineering research unit (RaCE)
- Water Innovation and Research Centre (WIRC)
- Institute for Mathematical Innovation (IMI)
- Centre for Regenerative Design & Engineering for a Net Positive World (RENEW)
- Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change
Person: Research & Teaching, Core staff, Affiliate staff