Preparation, characterazation and performance of polyvindene fluoride (PVDF)/Tetraoctyl phosphonium bromide (TOPBr) nanocomposite ultrafiltration membrane tpwards protein separation and fouling quantication

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.