Experimental Design Applied to Fabrication of PSf Membranes via NIPS Method Part2: Influential Parameters on Pure Water Permeability and Selection Criteria for Optimum Membrane in MF Process

Polysulfone flat sheet membranes are fabricated by using solvent-non solvent exchange method. NMP is used as solvent and PEG 20000 as additive. Full factorial design is used to examine the individual and mutual impacts of parameters on the membranes. To that effect, the individual and mutual impacts of such parameters as polymer materials concentration, PEG 20000 concentration as well as non-solvent bath composition on the structure and function of membranes are studied. The structural analyses include porosity measurement and observation of SEM images. The membranes are subjected to pure water permeability for assessing their functions and operational evaluations. The effective parameters in the porosity analysis include, in terms of priority, coagulation bath composition, polymer concentration and PEG concentration while in pure water permeability analysis, PEG concentration overtakes polymer concentration. The results show that when PEG concentration in dope solution and NMP concentration in coagulation bath exceed than 9% (wt/wt) and 30% (wt/wt) while polymer concentration is respectively between 14 and 15% (wt/wt), the fabricated membrane would be suitable for microfiltration (MF) process.