Tremendous progress has been made in developing novel chemistries and functional surfaces to achieve better permselective performances for membrane technologies. However, to integrate these high-value-added membranes into actual filtration device or modules, controlled bonding between the membranes with the supporting structures (typically thermoplastic polymers) must be achieved. Failure to do so can result in manufacturing yield loss or product failure during application usage. As such, the limitation in membrane-to-component bonding has been identified as one of the top challenges for applying membrane technologies, especially in high-pressure applications. Among the different bonding methods, thermal wielding uses infiltration of a viscous polymer into the membrane pores, driven by either capillary force or external pressure. I will discuss the filling kinetics of a viscous polymer melt through asymmetric porous membranes with varying degrees of hydrophilicity and pore size, provided by Millipore Sigma, over a range of different thermomechanical conditions including temperature and pressure. The resulting bonding strength between the polymer and membrane is also systematically investigated.

Bonding of membranes by viscous polymers: Infiltration kinetics and its impact on mechanical integrity of the bonded polymer/membrane structure

ACS Spring 2022

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