Properties of Polyethersulfone Ultrafiltration Membrane by Incorporating Ionic Liquid for Humic Acid Removal

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the properties of fabricated polythersulfone ultrafiltration membrane by incorporating ionic liquid (IL) (Aliquat 336) in the casting solution towards HA removal. IL namely Aliquat 336 is used with varied composition of polyethersulfone (PES) as polymer and and Dimethyl acetamide (DMAC) as a solvent. All the fabricated membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), ganiometer and Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) analysis. The fabricated membranes were also analyzed through its performance based on water flux, HA flux and HA rejection. The experimental results show that the incorporation of ionic liquid in different composition of polymer resulted in different characteristic of membrane and provided in improvement of HA removal. The P4 membrane gave the best performance with the water flux of 373.25 L/m2 .h, the HA flux of 262.68 L/m2 .h and the highest removal of HA up to 90%.