Viscosity Modification of Polymerizable Bicontinuous Microemulsion by Controlled Radical Polymerization for Membrane Coating Applications

Membranes

Christian Hitzel¹  Jan Hoinkis¹  Roberto Simonutti²  MauroDaniel Luigi Bruno³  Alberto Figoli⁴  Francesco Galiano⁴  Bartolo Gabriele⁵  Ephraim Gukelberger⁵  Raffaella Mancuso⁵ 

[1] Center of Applied Research (CAR), Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany;Department of Materials Science, University of Milan-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy;Department of Physics, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy;Institute on Membrane Technology, National Research Council (ITM-CNR), 87036 Rende (CS), Italy;Laboratory of Industrial and Synthetic Organic Chemistry (LISOC), Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy;

关键词: viscosity modification;    polymerizable bicontinuous microemulsion;    controlled radical polymerization;    membrane coating;    wastewater treatment;   

DOI  :  10.3390/membranes10090246

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Membrane modification is becoming ever more relevant for mitigating fouling phenomena within wastewater treatment applications. Past research included a novel low-fouling coating using polymerizable bicontinuous microemulsion (PBM) induced by UV-LED polymerization. This additional cover layer deteriorated the filtration capacity significantly, potentially due to the observed high pore intrusion of the liquid PBM prior to the casting process. Therefore, this work addressed an innovative experimental protocol for controlling the viscosity of polymerizable bicontinuous microemulsions (PBM) before casting on commercial ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. Prior to the coating procedure, the PBM viscosity modulation was carried out by controlled radical polymerization (CRP). The regulation was conducted by introducing the radical inhibitor 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl after a certain time (CRP time). The ensuing controlled radical polymerized PBM (CRP-PBM) showed a higher viscosity than the original unpolymerized PBM, as confirmed by rheological measurements. Nevertheless, the resulting CRP-PBM-cast membranes had a lower permeability in water filtration experiments despite a higher viscosity and potentially lower pore intrusion. This result is due to different polymeric structures of the differently polymerized PBM, as confirmed by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) investigations. The findings can be useful for future developments in the membrane science field for production of specific membrane-coating layers for diverse applications.

【 授权许可】

Unknown