Enhancing antifouling performance of poly(l‐lactide) membranes by TiO₂ nanoparticles

Abstract

Poly(l‐lactide) (PLLA)/TiO2 composite membranes were fabricated by immersion precipitation method. The resulting membranes were characterized using various methods including XRD, ATR‐FTIR, TGA, DSC, SEM, goniometer, and molecular weight cut‐off. The antifouling performance of the membrane was investigated through the filtration experiments of the oil/water emulsion. XRD, SEM, and ATR‐FTIR results indicated that TiO2 was successfully introduced into the membrane, while DSC and TGA indicated the enhancement of thermal stability of membrane. The improvement of membrane hydrophilicity was confirmed by goniometer. In addition, the pore size and porosity on the membrane surface varied obviously with increasing the TiO2 loading. It was concluded that PLLA/TiO2 composite membranes had better antifouling and recycling performance compared with the pure PLLA membrane. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43542.

Fabrication of green poly (L‐lactic acid) hybrid membrane through incorporation of functionalized natural halloysite nanotubes

“…Figure 2 shows the ATR‐FTIR spectra of the pure PLLA and PLLA/HNT hybrid membranes. For the pure PLLA membrane without the addition of HNTs, the characteristic peaks of PLLA were observed at 1087 and 1184 cm −1 (ester group vibration), 1450 cm −1 (methyl bending vibration), and 1755 cm −1 (carbonyl group stretching) 10 . For the PLLA/HNT hybrid membranes, the typical peaks of the modified HNTs were not identified in the spectrograms, and there were two reasons for these results.…”

“…For the pure PLLA membrane without the addition of HNTs, the characteristic peaks of PLLA were observed at 1087 and 1184 cm −1 (ester group vibration), 1450 cm −1 (methyl bending vibration), and 1755 cm −1 (carbonyl group stretching). 10 For the PLLA/HNT hybrid membranes, the typical peaks of the modified HNTs were not identified in the spectrograms, and there were two reasons for these results. For one thing, the typical peak of HNT at 1036 cm −1 was close to that of the PLLA membrane matrix at 1087 cm −1 .…”

“…One effective solution to this problem is to fabricate organic–inorganic hybrid membranes by loading inorganic nanoparticles into the membrane matrix 8 . In the previous literature, PLLA membranes were severally modified by titanium dioxide and polyaniline to improve their antifouling performance 9,10 . However, the surface graft ratios of nonporous nanoparticles (such as TiO 2 and polyaniline) are relatively low due to the limited interactive sites; therefore, some nanoparticles are prone to aggregating, which weakens the resistance to membrane fouling and leads to long‐term instability.…”

Improvement of antifouling performance of poly(l‐lactic acid) membranes through incorporating polyaniline nanoparticles

“…In addition, PLLA has the potential to outperform its petroleum counterpart on a life cycle basis . Hence, PLLA has been fabricated into various membranes for microfiltration, hemodialysis, pervaporation, and ultrafiltration . However, PLLA membrane easily suffers from various fouling due to its hydrophobic nature, eventually shortening the service life.…”

Metal Oxide Polymer Nanocomposites in Water Treatments

“…About 1.5 wt% of the nanocomposite showed an improved water permeability of 66.72 × 10 −9 m s/k/Pa. Poly(l-lactide)/TiO 2 nanocomposite membrane was prepared by immersion precipitation method [74]. Moreover, the porosity and pore size on the nanocomposite membrane surface become denser with increasing the TiO 2 loading.…”