Synthesis and characterization of surface plasma pre-treated pervaporation hydrophilic composite membranes

BETINA VILLAGRA DI CARLO ; ALBERTO CLAUDIO HABERT

Torun

Congreso; International Scientific Conference on Pervaporation, Vapor Permeation and Membrane Distillation; 2011

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY TURUN POLAND

Composite membrane can be prepared by coating films of hydrophilic polymer materials on a porous supporting membrane. The film thickness can be reduced up to the point where the supporting surface is completely covered by the coating material. Mechanical properties may be adequate through the suitable choice of the support porous membrane, which offers a negligible resistance to mass transfer when compared even with an extremely thin dense layer. Plasma treatment is particularly useful whenever surface adhesion and wettability has to be increased to deposit dense polymer films. This work aimed at hydrophilic composite membranes for the pervaporation of aqueous mixtures (water- ethanol, 20/80wt %), coating plasma surface-activated microporous support (PES) with poly(acrylic acid) [PAA, 25wt%] and poly(vinyl alcohol) [PVA, 75wt%], followed by thermal crosslinking.