• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.282-292
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• 2021

In this work, we tested commercial organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes using both in-house dead-end and crossflow systems. Four different crosslinked polyimide Duramem (DM) OSN membranes with various MWCO (molecular weight cut off) values were tested in organic solvents such as ethanol, N,N-dimethylformamide, acetone and acetonitrile. The membranes exhibited more reliable and reproducible performance in the crossflow system, and the performance changed significantly depending in the physical properties of the testing solvent. This is due to the initial stabilization period via pressure-induced compaction phenomenon, which can be vastly different between membrane samples. Hence, to obtain reliable and reproducible results, crossflow system is the preferred choice.