Influence of the Nanoparticles Size on the Permeation Properties of the Polymeric Membranes

Abstract

In this study, polyethersulfone (PES) membranes blended with zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO) were manufactured by diffusion induced phase inversion in NMethyl-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent and deionized water as coagulant, in view of increasing the properties of the polymeric membranes. Neat PES membranes were modified by dispersing ZnO nanoparticles with two different sizes in a PES casting solution. Four different concentrations of nanoparticles was studied between 0.035 to 1 wt.% for four different concentration of PES (25, 27, 30 and 32 wt.%). The influence of the ZnO nanoparticles size on the permeation performances of PES/ZnO membranes were investigated with contact angle and filtration experiments. The results show an important improvement of the neat membranes properties, permeability and flux, by adding ZnO nanoparticles with two different size even at a smaller concentration, less than 0.5 wt.%. The influence of the nanoparticles size is obvious, decreasing the nanoparticles size, the permeation properties of the polymeric membranes increase.