A Design of Composite Hollow Fiber Membranes with Tunable Performance and Reinforced Mechanical Strength

Abstract

A new design of hollow fiber membranes with high mechanical strength, great surface area per volume ratio and tunable filtration performance is presented. This newly developed hollow fiber membrane was produced by an intensified production process, in which the processes of thermally induced phase separation (TIPS), non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS), and interfacial polymerization (IP) were combined. PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride) hollow fiber membranes (produced by TIPS) were used as support substrates. Afterwards, PES (polyethersulfone) (made by NIPS) and PA (polyamide) layers (manufactured by IP) were coated one by one. The pure water permeability, molecular weight cut off (MWCO), salt rejection, tensile stress together with surface and cross-sectional morphology indicate that the properties of the hollow fiber membranes can be easily adjusted from microfiltration-like to nanofiltration-like membranes only by varying the presence of the IP step and the concentration in the PES layer in the production system. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41247.