Performance of ionic ultrafiltration polyethersulfone (PES) membrane for humic acid (HA) removal

Abstract

The interest in ionic liquids (IL) has grown by its unique properties, such as negligible vapor pressure, thermal stability, wide electrochemical stability window, and tunability of properties. In this study, miscible IL namely Aliquat 335 with different composition of polyethersulfone (PES) and and Dimethyl acetamide (DMAC) as a solvent were used to fabricate the ionic ultrafiltration membrane by using dry-wet phase inversion technique. The effect of the composition PES on the properties and HA removal performance of ionic ultrafiltration membrane was investigated in this study. The properties of ionic ultrafiltration membranes such as surface morphology, hydrophilicity and functional group were characterized through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Water Contact Angle analysis. The performance of the fabricated membrane was analyzed based on water flux, HA flux, HA rejection and fouling analysis. The newly developed ionic membranes will be expected to achieve high HA removal and can be used as ultrafiltration membranes for the separation and concentration of macromolecules.