Polysulfone based polymers are commonly employed in high performance membrane applications for water purification purposes. In certain applications for industrial wastewater recovery, operation conditions such as high pH and high temperature are known to negatively influence the membrane performance. In this study, highly branched, functional poly(arylene ether sulfone)s (HB-PES) were synthesized via the A2+B3 polymerization. It is well-known that despite their multitude of end-groups, hyperbranched or highly branched polymers typically show poor thermo-mechanical properties compared to their lineer analogues. In order to develop HB-PES films and membranes with enhanced thermo-mechanical properties or water-dispersibility, various strategies were developed to introduce functional groups such as silane, acrylate or phenolate functionality on polymer chain ends, which were characterized by FT-IR and NMR spectroscopies, SEC, DMA, DSC and stress strain tests. Acrylate and silane functionalities allowed the ability of crosslinking in the presence of moisture, UV light or heat. The thermal and chemical resistance of the organic-inorganic composite film produced from these novel silane functional HB-PESs was specifically investigated. In an attempt to develop ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes with enhanced thermal and mechanical properties, silane or acrylate functional HB-PESs were incorporated into the linear PES-based membranes produced by the phase inversion process followed by a post-crosslinking step. Moreover, phenolate functional HB-PESs were found to be dispersible or soluble in water depending on the number of terminal groups, which enabled the fabrication of thin film composite (TFC) membranes by interfacial polymerization for industrial wastewater purification applications.

Synthesis and characterization of highly branched, functional poly(arylene ether sulfone)s

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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