Structure Change of Polyethersulfone Hollow Fiber Membrane Modified with Pluronic F127, Polyvinylpyrrolidone, and Tetronic 1307

Abstract

Hydrophilic polyethersulfone (PES) hollow fiber membranes were prepared via non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) by addition of polymeric additives as a membrane modifying agent. The effect of the addition of hydrophilic surfactant Pluronic F127, Polyivinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and Tetronic 1307 on the performance of the final PES hollow-fiber membrane was investigated. The morphology of fabricated hollow fiber membrane observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) indicated that all of membrane had a skin layer on the surface and finger like macrovoid structure inside the hollow fiber. The addition of 5 wt% polymeric surfactant on the polymer solution results in membrane with improved length and number of macrovoid structure. Sponge formation both near inner surface and near outer surface of hollow fiber membrane was another impact of addition of polymeric additives, which is led to decrease of water permeability of these membrane. Water contact angle measurement was performed to investigate the hydrophilicity property of resulted membrane. It is confirmed that the modified PES hollow fiber membranes had lower water contact angle than that of the original membrane, which indicate that the modified PES membrane with additives has high hydrophilic.