Development of Low Pressure Operating Tight Ultra/Nanofiltration Hollow Fiber Membranes for Water Filtration Applications

Development of Low Pressure Operating Tight Ultra/Nanofiltration Hollow Fiber Membranes for Water Filtration Applications

R. Balamurugan, M. Michael, X. Chen, S. Saravana Kumar, K. Sathish Kumar and U. Winter*

R & D Water Applications, Mann+Hummel Ultra-Flo Pte Ltd, Singapore-639233

e-mail: Balamurugan.Ramalingam@mann-hummel.com

A polymeric hollow fiber membrane plays a vital role in liquid filtration application. The hollow fiber membrane systems developed from a new generation polymers for industrial water applications lies in its cost, low pressure operating conditions, chemical stability, mechanical strength and ease in production processing.

In this study, Preparation of Polyethersulfone (PES) and Polyetherimide (PEI) hollow fiber tight UF membranes were investigated. The amount of water content in the spinning dope is one of the important parameter for spinning dope formulation.  When non-solvent water was added into the polymer solution, solidification of the membrane was faster and pore formation can be adjusted.

Hollow fiber membranes were prepared from PES via the dry wet spinning method with different ratio of water content (0, 2.5, 5.6, & 6.3) in spinning dope solution. Filtration performance of the hollow fiber membranes has been determined by evaluation of the pure water permeability and using dextran rejection, pore size measurement were carried out. Currently, MWCO of our hollow fiber membranes are in the range of 5 to 7 KD with average pure water flux of 70-80 LMH/bar. These results confirm the potential suitability of these tight UF hollow fiber membranes in various water applications. Utilizing the same direct spin methodology, production of low operating Nanofiltration hollow fiber is in progress.

Acknowledgement:

We gratefully acknowledge PUB Singapore for this NF grant program (2P10004/92).

Keywords: Hollow fiber, Ultrafiltration, Nanofiltration, polyethersulfone, Polyetherimide.