Effects of polyvinylpyrrolidone additive on the performance of hollow fiber ion exchanger mixed matrix membrane for copper removal

• Main Author: Wong Jing Zhi, Kelvin
• Format: Undergraduates Project Papers
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/11021/1/FKKSA%20-%20KELVIN%20WONG%20JING%20ZHI%20%20%28CD8948%29.pdf; http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/11021/

The existence of copper in the environment is a concern due to the acute and long term toxicity. With the advantages of lower capital cost, easy operation process and high copper removal percentage, ion exchange technology offers the best treatment for copper removal but it has a drawback where it will cause a vast drop in pressure. In order to overcome this limitation, an ion exchanger mixed matrix membrane was produced in this study. Amberlite IR 120H cation exchanger was incorporated in the polyethersulfone (PES) based polymer solution. The effect of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) pore forming additive in the PES dope solution was studied in the range of 0 to 10wt%. The hollow fiber membrane was synthesized using dry-wet spinning procedure. The pore structure of the membrane was characterized using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and was found more porous as the concentration of PVP increases. The permeability was also increased as the concentration of PVP increases. The optimum concentration of PVP for the removal of copper is between 3wt% and 5wt%.