A microporous epoxy resin cross–linked Polyethersulfone (ER–PES) membrane was prepared from PES/1–methyl–2–pyrrolidone (NMP) solution using dry–wet phase inversion method with Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (DGEBA) and Glycidyl methacrylate (GM) as the ER. This study attempts to correlate the changes in membrane morphology with the different dry–phase inversion duration used as well as the separation efficiency of these two types of ER (DGEBA and GM) in Cr removal. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was performed to observe the membrane morphology and Attenuated total reflectance–Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR–FTIR) was used to investigate the crystalline structure of the membrane. Experimental findings (FESEM, through–pore distribution and porosity) reveals that there was not much different in physical morphologies between different dry–phase inversion duration for DGEBA–PES and GM–PES membranes. However, in term of chemical properties, DGEBA ER did enhance the hydrophilicity of DGEBA–PES membrane as well as Cr rejection. 1 day DGEBA–PES membrane showed a high rejection of Cr (VI) ions at 80.64% without fouling at permeation flux of 16.479 L/m2hr. As for GM–PES membrane, no permeate found for cross–filtration setup due to small pore sizes as well as ER did not being integrated well within the PES matrix. Dead end filtration setup was performed at 6 bar using deionized water in order to check the existence of pores. 20 min GM–PES membrane revealed the highest permeation flux (11.33 L/m2.hr) but it still quite low. This is due to the hydrophilicity of GM–PES membrane cannot be enhanced since GM ER did not succeed being integrated within the PES matrix. From the result, it could be concluded that the DGEBA–PES has better potential in the removal of Cr ions from an aqueous waste.
Separation efficiency of the epoxy resin cross–linked polyethersulfone membrane for chromium removal / Mohammad Azizol Shafiee