Effect of Polyphenylsulfone and Polysulfone Incompatibility on the Structure and Performance of Blend Membranes for Ultrafiltration

Tatiana Plisko; Yana Karslyan; Alexandr Bildyukevich

doi:10.3390/ma14195740

Effect of Polyphenylsulfone and Polysulfone Incompatibility on the Structure and Performance of Blend Membranes for Ultrafiltration

Materials (Basel). 2021 Oct 1;14(19):5740. doi: 10.3390/ma14195740.

Authors

Tatiana Plisko^{1

2}, Yana Karslyan³, Alexandr Bildyukevich¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Physical Organic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 13 Surganov Street, 220072 Minsk, Belarus.
² Department of Analytical Chemistry, Petersburg State University, 7/9 Universitetskaya nab., 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.
³ Argonne National Laboratory, Energy and Global Security Directorate, Chemical & Fuel Cycle Technologies Division, 9700 S Cass Ave, Lemont, IL 60439, USA.

Abstract

This study deals with the modification of polyphenylsulfone ultrafiltration membranes by introduction of an incompatible polymer polysulfone to the polyphenylsulfone casting solution to improve the permeability. The correlation between properties of the blend polyphenylsulfone/polysulfone solutions and porous anisotropic membranes for ultrafiltration prepared from these solutions was revealed. The blend polyphenylsulfone/polysulfone solutions were investigated using a turbidity spectrum method, optical microscopy and measurements of dynamic viscosity and turbidity. The structure of the prepared blend flat sheet membranes was studied using scanning electron microscopy. Membrane separation performance was investigated in the process of ultrafiltration of human serum albumin buffered solutions. It was found that with the introduction of polysulfone to the polyphenylsulfone casting solution in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone the size of supramolecular particles significantly increases with the maximum at (40-60):(60:40) polyphenylsulfone:polysulfone blend ratio from 76 nm to 196-354 nm. It was shown that polyphenylsulfone/polysulfone blend solutions, unlike the solutions of pristine polymers, are two-phase systems (emulsions) with the maximum droplet size and highest degree of polydispersity at polyphenylsulfone/polysulfone blend ratios (30-60):(70-40). Pure water flux of the blend membranes passes through a maximum in the region of the most heterogeneous structure of the casting solution, which is associated with the imposition of a polymer-polymer phase separation on the non-solvent induced phase separation upon membrane preparation. The application of polyphenylsulfone/polysulfone blends as membrane-forming polymers and polyethylene glycol (M_n = 400 g·mol^-1) as a pore-forming agent to the casting solutions yields the formation of ultrafiltration membranes with high membrane pure water flux (270 L·m^-2·h^-1 at 0.1MPa) and human serum albumin rejection of 85%.

Keywords: incompability; membrane; polymer blend; polyphenylsulfone; polysulfone; ultrafiltration.