Preparation and characterization of thermally stable copoly(phthalazinone biphenyl ether sulfone) hollow fiber ultrafiltration membranes

Abstract Novel thermally stable copoly(phthalazinone biphenyl ether sulfone) (PPBES) hollow fiber ultrafiltration (UF) membranes were successfully fabricated by the dry/wet phase inversion technique. The effects of polymer dope formulation (i.e., the PPBES concentration, different types and contents of additives) and fiber spinning conditions (i.e., air gap distance, coagulation bath temperature) on the morphologies and separation performance of PPBES hollow fiber UF membranes were investigated, respectively. It was found that the water flux of hollow fiber membrane decreased with the increase of PPBES concentration or EGME content in casting solution, while the rejection of PEG increased. However, the PPBES hollow fiber UF prepared with LiCl as inorganic small molecule additive exhibited different phenomena. In addition, the decrease of air gap distance or the increase of coagulation bath temperature could improve the water flux of UF membrane while reduce the rejection of PEG. Moreover, the thermal stability of the PPBES hollow fiber UF membranes was investigated. The water flux of PPBES membrane increased dramatically from 155 to 428 L m −2 h −1 without significant decrease of rejection when the temperature of feed solution increased from 20 °C to 95 °C.