The production technique, additive manufacturing, fabricates a physical structure from a virtual 3D model. Current membrane research in this field mainly focuses on the additive manufacturing of membrane spacers and not membranes or common membrane materials. Ultrafiltration membrane fabrication requires pore formation and sizes around 0.01 micron. The most prominent membrane fabrication methods employ phase inversion of a polymer dope in a non-solvent coagulation bath to create the necessary pore sizes. If these sizes can be achieved with additive manufacturing techniques, additional shapes with higher surface area can be created. This paper focuses on the synthesis of polysulfone, a common membrane material, for use in the additive manufacturing of ultrafiltration membranes. A series of low and high MW polysulfone (PSF) was synthesized, acrylated, and photorheology tests were completed to determine the possibility to use in a vat photopolymerization additive manufacturing setting. We designed an effective symmetric porous ultrafiltration membrane protocol and collected data for a control group using high MW PSF in NMP with varying polymer loading, thickness settings, and at varying presssures. The results showed polymer loading had the most influence on permeance, thickness only slightly impacted permeance, and pressure hardly had any impact, especially for thicker membranes. UV-light treated acrylate functionalized polysulfone membranes demonstrated higher permeance than those not treated with UV light.

Synthesis, additive manufacturing, and performance of polysulfone membranes for separation processes

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.