Permeability and morphology study of polysulfone composite membrane blended with nanocrystalline cellulose

Polysulfone (PS) composite membranes blended with nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) for ultrafiltration were prepared by a Loeb-Sourirajan phase inversion process. The effect of NCC content, PS content, and additive content on both permeability and morphology of composite membranes were studied. The surface and cross-section morphologies of the composite membranes were investigated using scanning electron microscopy with both the porosity and mean pore size of composite membranes being compared. The experimental result showed that the morphology of composite membranes changed significantly with the aforementioned factors. Through the experimental work, the proper composite membrane preparation condition was obtained as follows. The NCC content was 0.3 wt% and the PS content was 18 wt%. The solvent was N,N-dimethylacetamide. PS glycol 1000 was used as the additive with a concentration of 3 wt%. The coagulation bath was deionized water and its temperature was maintained at 30 degrees C. Due to the addition of NCC the pure water flux of composite membrane increased from 175.6 L/(m(2 )h) in the pure PS to 343.2 L/(m(2 )h), the porosity and mean pore size of composite membrane increased from 40.5% and 33.6 nm in the pure PS membrane to 67.6%, 47.1 nm, respectively.