Preparation and Characterization of Pore-filled Membrane Based on Polypropylene with Poly(vinylbenzyl chloride) by Using in-situ Cross-linking Technique

Water softening is a very promising field for membranes and especially ultra low pressure membranes. Nanofiltration membranes based on pore-filling technology was prepared by using a new technique: the in-situ cross-linking. This route involves introducing a pre-formed polymer into the pores of a host membrane and then locking the polymer in the pores by in-situ cross-linking with an appropriate reagent. By this way, it is possible to make robust and competitive, pore-filled, anion-exchange membranes with excellent control over the properties of the incorporated gel without affecting the host membrane. In this paper, the possibilities of tuning such membranes for ultra low pressure water softening was examined by altering pore-filling chemistry (by changing cross-linking and aminating reagents). The results showed that tuning the chemistry of the pore-filling has important effects. In particularly, it had been shown that the correct selection of cross-linking reagent was not only essential to get pore-filled membranes but it could control their properties. Moreover, the aminating reagent could improve membrane performance. It was found that an increase in hydrophobicity could improve the Darcy permeability.