Phase inversion for polymeric membrane fabrication

Описание: Membranes, selective barriers that can fractionate mixtures of different components, are most commonly prepared using a technique called “phase inversion”. The technique relies on the phase separation of a polymer solution upon contact with a nonsolvent that precipitates the polymer. A wide variety of membranes can be produced with different pore sizes and hence different applications. In our video, we show the research we do in METU Chemical Engineering Department on fabricating a variety of membrane structures using phase inversion. The membranes can be flat sheets or hollow fibers and by using templating methods or fluid flow instabilities membranes can be prepared as corrugated sheets, twisting or meandering hollow fibers.

The membrane formation process can be visualized under an optical microscope by placing a drop of polymer solution between a glass slide and a cover slip and injecting the nonsolvent that is to phase separate the polymer solution from the side. The rate of phase separation measured this way can give insight into the resulting membrane morphology.

In the video we briefly illustrate the fabrication of membranes from solution preparation to casting and coagulation. We also show how we can visualize the phase inversion rate using optical microscopy.