Novel nanofiltration membranes with tunable permselectivity by polymer mediated phase separation in polyamide selective layer

Microstructure in selective layer has played a decisive role in permselectivity of nanofiltration(NF) membranes,and nanomaterials were well-known additives that had been applied to mediate the microstructure and permeability of polyamide NF membranes. However, nanoadditives generally displayed a poor dispersion in membranes or in fabrication process. To solve this problem, we showed an interesting concept that novel NF membranes with hybrid selective layer consisting of flexible polyisobutylene(PIB) and rigid polyamide could be fabricated from well-defined interfacial polymerization. The hydrophobic polymer mediated phase separation and microdomains formation in polyamide layer were found. The immiscibility between the rigid polyamide and flexible PIB as well as the resultant interface effect was interpreted as the reason for the polymer enhanced permselectivity, which was similar with the well-known thin film nanocomposite(TFN) membranes that nanoparticles incorporated contributed significantly to membrane permeability and rejection performance.Our results have demonstrated that novel NF membranes with enhanced performance can be prepared from immiscible polymers, which is a new area that has not been extensively studied before.

SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE ASSISTED SYNTHESIS OF AMPHIPHILIC GRAFT COPOLYMERS BASED ON POLY(STYRENE-CO-MALEIC ANHYDRIDE) WITH METHOXYL POLY(ETHYLENE GLYCOL) SIDE CHAINS

Supercritical carbon dioxide （scCO2） was used as a reaction medium in synthesizing amphiphilic graft copolymers composed of poly（styrene-co-maleic anhydride） （SMA） backbones and methoxyl poly（ethylene glycol） （MPEG） side chains via esterification. The synthesized copolymers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （FTIR）, gel permeation chromatography （GPC）, IH-NMR, thermo-gravimetric analysis （TGA） and differential scanning calorimetric analysis （DSC）. The gelation phenomenon was suppressed effectively by tuning reaction conditions. The influences of scCO2 temperature and pressure on the conversion of anhydride were investigated. It was found that the highest conversion ratio occurred at 80~C under a constant pressure of 14 MPa or 26 MPa. With the increase of scCO2 pressure, the conversion ratio increased first, and then leveled off. The conversion ratio of anhydride could be controlled by regulating the reaction conditions. It was also revealed that using low molecular weight MPEG brought a high conversion ratio of anhydride.