Abstract:
Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane is widely used in much industrial area and applications.
Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is one of the commonly used materials for membrane
due to its excellent properties. However, its hydrophobic nature cause decreasing of
the demand and limited applications. Hence, PVDF membrane was selected to study
and to synthesis a higher performance membrane. Tetraoctyl phosphonium bromide
(TOPBr) was used and acted as a nano-filler material added into PVDF matric in order
to obtain hydrophilic surface with antifouling properties of PVDF/TOPBr
nanocomposite membrane. Phase inversion process was used for membrane
fabrication. The objectives were to characterize PVDF/TOPBr nanocomposite UF
membrane in terms of physiochemical (water content, porosity, thermogravimetric
analysis (TGA), x-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
(FTIR), mechanical properties, and morphology structure by scanning electron
microscopy (SEM). Performance of membrane towards water permeation and protein
separation as well as fouling quantification were studied in this research. The
membrane with best composition was chose in terms of its properties and
performances. When clay dosage increased, pore size of nanocomposite membrane
increased and so this increased its water content and porosity. While mechanical
strength and thermal stability of nanocomposite membrane decreased with increased
dosage of clay content.
