• Membrane Journal
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.329-337
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• 2007

This is the research about a new method to make the internal separation layer with smallest pore size in polyethersulfone (PES) membrane by adding p-toluenesulfonic acid (TSA) and polyvinylpyrolidone (PVP) to polymeric PES solution. The preparation and morphological characterization of PES sheet membranes containing PVP as a hydrophilic swelling material and TSA as a demixing material were performed. As a result by microflow porometery, the PVP and TSA added PES membranes showed good permeabilities and narrow pore size distributions, comparable to those of the commercial membranes. The concentration of PVP affected the PES characteristics on air permeability and surface structure. The concentration of TSA influenced on pore size distribution but do not affect air permeability. The surface images of FE-SEM shows similar pore size when TSA added or not. However, the cross-section images of FE-SEM show that the TSA added PES membranes have a increase of internal layer thickness with smallest pore size.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.25-37
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• 2011

PES UF membranes containing silver were prepared to impart antibacterial properties for waste water treatment. Asymmetric membranes for antibacterial application were prepared from polyethersulfone (PES) and silver nitrate ($AgNO_3$) (PES/$AgNO_3$=15/2 by weight) solution in N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) via simple wet phase inversion technique. These membranes were characterized by polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) of different molecular weights (1000 ppm in water) at room temperature and on operating pressure of 5 bars. It was observed that the water flux of PES-$AgNO_3$ membrane is slightly lower than virgin PES but still increased linearly with the increment of pressure applied. The morphology of the resulting membranes was examined using Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) coupled with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). Elemental analysis using EDS proved that silver is successfully loaded on the membrane surfaces. Due to the success of loading silver on membrane surfaces, antibacterial activities were evaluated via agar diffusion method against Escherichia coli (E.coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S.aureus) culture. By incorporating 2 wt% of silver nitrate, PES-$AgNO_3$ showed significant inhibition ring on both E.coli and S.aureus. Filtration of E.coli solution (OD 0.31) showed satisfactory rejection data with ~100% inhibition growth after 24 hours incubation at $37^{\circ}C$. Resultant membranes also exhibit better tensile strength (compared to virgin PES) up to 71% may be due to the suggested interactions. The residual silver during fabrication was measured using ICP-MS and result showed that the residual silver content of PES-$AgNO_3$ membrane was only ~1% of the original silver added in the polymer solution. These studies have shown that PES-$AgNO_3$ UF membranes are potential in improving the filtration in water treatment.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2009

PES (polyethersulfone) membranes with highly enhanced their asymmetry were prepared by phase inversion process. The membranes were prepared by using PES/DMF (N,N-dimethylformamide)/TSA (p-toluenesulfonic acid)/PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone) casting solution and water coagulant. The pre-coagulation of membrane surface which was induced by an addition of TSA as a demixing agent and PVP as a swelling polymer in the PES solution and humid exposure time, played a crucial role in determining morphological properties and the PWP (pure water permeation) performance. The PES solution was coated on polyester film under condition of 80% humidity for a while ($72{\sim}144$ sec) before immersing in a coagulation bath. The characterization of membranes was carried out by a capillary flow porometer, a FE-SEM and a permeation test apparatus. As the thickness of the smallest pore size layer (SPL) decreased, the asymmetry of membrane increased under conditions of 20 wt% of TSA and 10 wt% of PVP in 11 wt% of PES solution during longer humid contact time. As a result, the membranes showed a remarkable increase of PWP.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.273-283
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• 2017

Polysulfone (PSF) is one of an important polymer that has been widely used in the manufacture of asymmetric microfiltration (MF) membranes. PSF membrane is considered as hydrophobic membrane that easily fouled during membrane operation process. The blending method is an effective method for improving the fouling resistance of PSF membranes. sPES (sulfonated polyethersulfone) is one of the useful polymers that can be used in PSF polymer blend method to improve hydrophilicity of PSF membranes. In this study, microfiltration polymer membranes were prepared by using PSF/sPES/PVP/BE/DMF casting solution and water coagulant. The morphology of MF membranes was changed by addition of a small amount of sPES in casting solution. The morphology of the sPES added membranes was changed into a highly asymmetric structure. The active layer grew and mean pore size was decreased by addition of sPES. However, the water flux of PSF/sPES/DMF/PVP/BE membrane was higher than that of PSF/DMF/PVP/BE membrane.

• Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
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• v.67
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• pp.199-209
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• 2018

Polyethersulfone (PES)/sulfonated $TiO_2$ ($STiO_2$) nanoparticles (NPs) UF blended membranes were fabricated with different loadings of $STiO_2$. The modified membranes exhibited significant improvement in surface roughness, porosity, and pore size when compared to the PES membrane. The $P-STiO_2$ 1 and $P-TiO_2$ 1 blended membranes exhibited higher water flux, approximately 102.4% and 62.6%, respectively, compared to PES. SPP-$STiO_2$ and $P-STiO_2$ showed lower Rir fouling resistance than the $P-TiO_2$ blended membrane. Overall, the $STiO_2$-blended membranes provide high hydrophilicity permeability, anti-fouling performance, and improved BSA rejection attributed to the hydrogen bonding force and more electrostatic repulsion properties of $STiO_2$.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.355-365
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• 2016

The improvement of fouling resistance of porous polymeric membrane is one of the most important targets in membrane preparation for water purification in many process like wastewater treatment. Membranes can be modified by various techniques, including the treatment of polymer material, blending of hydrophilic polymer into polymer solution, and post treatment of fabricated membrane. This research proposed the modifications of morphology and surface property of hydrophobic membrane by blending polyethersulfone (PES) with three polymeric additives, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Pluronic F127 (Plu), and Tetronic 1307 (Tet). PES hollow fiber membranes were fabricated via dry-wet spinning process by using a spinneret with inner and outer diameter of 0.7 and 1.0 mm, respectively. The morphology changes of PES blend membrane by those additives, as well as the change of performance in ultrafiltration module were comparatively observed. The surface structure of membranes was characterized by atomic force microscopy and Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy. The cross section morphology of PES blend hollow fiber membranes was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that all polymeric additives blended in this system affected to improve the performances of PES membrane. The ultra-filtration experiment confirmed that PES-PVP membrane showed the best performance among the three membranes on the basis of filtration stability.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.205-212
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• 2014

Polyethersulfone (PES) membranes were modified by various physico-chemical modification methods to enhance the surface hydrophilicity for application as a separation membrane to separate and collect water vapor from the flue gas. Homogeneous PES flat-sheet membranes were prepared and modified by acid treatment, blending and plasma treatment for hydrophilic surface modification. The surface characteristics of the modified PES membranes were evaluated by ATR-FTIR, XPS, SEM and contact angle measurements. No significant change in hydrophilicity was observed for the PES membranes modified by acid treatment with sulfuric acid or blending with various compositions of poloxamer as an amphiphilic PEO-PPO-PEO tri-block copolymer. On the other hand, Ar plasma treatment led to a significant increase in the hydrophilicity of the surface, depending on the plasma treatment time. As a result, the PES membrane could be the most efficiently surface-treated by applying the plasma treatment for enhancing their surface hydrophilicity.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.393-403
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• 2018

In this research commercial polyethersulfone (PES) membrane was modified using $TiO_2$ nanoparticles (P-25 Degussa) and further irradiated using UV light to overcome the hydrophobicity and fouling nature of the membrane. Further the membranes were characterized using SEM and FTIR. Contact angle measurements study confirmed the hydrophilic tendency of the modified membrane by decreasing the contact angle from $73^{\circ}$ to $20.28^{\circ}$. The modified membranes showed higher flux and better anti-fouling properties as compared to the unmodified counterparts. The optimum conditions were found to be 0.5 wt% $TiO_2$ loading with 60 min membrane immersion and 10 min UV light illumination. The effect of different pH conditions of feed was analysed. Real wastewater filtration experiments also indicated better performance of modified membranes as opposed to neat PES membranes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.463-469
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• 2016

In this research, a new expectation in enhancing the PES (polyethersulfone) polymer phase inversion membrane performances with nanoparticles is proposed by using ZnO. This paper investigated the synthesis of PES phase inversion membranes including ZnO nanoparticles and evaluates the performance of these mixed matrix membranes. The PES-ZnO mixed matrix membranes were fabricated by phase inversion method using the PES-ZnO-NMP(N-methyl-1-pyrrolidone) casting solutions with low ZnO nanoparticles content of 0.375 wt%. The influence of ZnO nanoparticles on the characteristics of PES-ZnO mixed matrix membranes was investigated with scanning electron microscope observations of membrane cross-sections, contact angle measurements, tensile strength measurements, pure water flux measurements and ultrafiltration experiments of BSA solution. Those results showed that the performance advancements in comparison with the pure PES membrane without ZnO in terms of increasing hydrophilicity as well as reducing membrane fouling by adding ZnO nanoparticles even in low concentration.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.377-388
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• 2011

Flat sheet microfiltration membranes were prepared with polysulfone (PSF), polyethersulfone (PES), and polyphenylsulfone (PPS) by an immersion precipitation phase inversion method. In this method, dimethyl formamide (DMF) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) were used as a solvent and a wetting polymer additive, respectively. 2-butoxyethanol (BE) was used as a nonsolvent additive catalyst to form pore. The morphology of membranes was investigated by scanning electron microscopy and micropermporometer. The permeability of the membranes was evaluated with the flux of pure water. When the BE was added, the pore size of membranes became larger than blank membranes. The changes in the morphology of membrane due to the BE addition depend on polymer structure. All membranes have similar mean pore size and porosity. The mean pore sizes of PSF, PES, and PPS membranes were 0.282, 0.330 $0.308{\mu}m$, respectively. The porosities of PSF, PES and PPS membranes were 68.5, 66.1, 66.4%, respectively. However, the PPS membrane showed higher pore density on surface and narrower pore size distribution than PSF or PES membrane does. As a result, the pure water flux of PPS membrane ($357L/m^2\;hr$) was higher than that of PSF ($196L/m^2\;hr$) or PES membrane ($214L/m^2\;hr$).