Effects of Soft Segments on the Pervaporation Performances of Polyurethane Membranes

In recent years, pervaporation is attracting the worldwide attention in the separation of aromatic compounds form aqueous solution. It has many advantages such as cleanness, energy-saving, and high efficiency. Phenol is a toxic contamination to water, and also an important chemical in engineering. The pervaporation membranes for separating phenol from water have been researched and should be further developed. In this study, the polyurethane (PU) membranes were prepared with three different soft segments. Their structures, thermal properties were characterized by FTIR, DSC and TGA. The effects of soft segment on pervaporation performances of PU membranes were investigated and discussed. Among these membranes, the PU with hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) as soft segment showed the highest selectivity but the lowest total flux, while that with hydroxyl-terminated poly (butadiene-acrylonitrile) (HTBN) obtained the highest total flux and the lowest separation factor.