TY - JOUR

T1 - Unique cellulose/polydimethylsiloxane blends as an advanced hybrid material for organic solvent nanofiltration and pervaporation membranes

AU - Puspasari, Tiara

AU - Chakrabarty, Tina

AU - Genduso, Giuseppe

AU - Peinemann, Klaus Viktor

N1 - Funding Information: This research was carried out with funding from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST, Saudi Arabia) Center of Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials. The authors thank Ohoud Al-Harbi, Nini Wei, Nemar Al-Wehbi and Wandi Wahyudi for their help with SEM, EDX and XPS analysis.

PY - 2018/6/5

Y1 - 2018/6/5

N2 - A novel method for the preparation of cellulose-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) blend membranes for organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) and ethanol pervaporation is presented. The elegance of this approach lies in the use of trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC), a hydrophobic cellulose derivative, for blend membrane fabrication followed by simple hydrolysis to convert TMSC back to cellulose. The use of TMSC not only allows cellulose processing in common organic solvents, but also enables the creation of highly compatible cellulose-PDMS blend membranes. The appropriate composition of the blend membrane gave the best OSN performance with more than 10 L m-2 h-1 bar-1 acetone permeance and around 750 Da molecular weight cut-off. This blend membrane can be used for OSN with any other solvents regardless of their polarity. The same membrane also showed an excellent pervaporation performance with a separation factor of 14 and a flux of 1.6 kg m-2 h-1 using a 5 wt% ethanol water mixture at room temperature. The blending of PDMS with cellulose resulted in a 100% increase of the separation factor when compared with pure PDMS. This surprising performance is a consequence of the good miscibility of the blending polymers, which can be obtained through this unique pathway. Overall, this study demonstrates a simple, efficient, and scalable method that is the only possible way reported to date to combine the superiority of cellulose and PDMS as a low-cost and stable membrane for solvent separation.

AB - A novel method for the preparation of cellulose-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) blend membranes for organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) and ethanol pervaporation is presented. The elegance of this approach lies in the use of trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC), a hydrophobic cellulose derivative, for blend membrane fabrication followed by simple hydrolysis to convert TMSC back to cellulose. The use of TMSC not only allows cellulose processing in common organic solvents, but also enables the creation of highly compatible cellulose-PDMS blend membranes. The appropriate composition of the blend membrane gave the best OSN performance with more than 10 L m-2 h-1 bar-1 acetone permeance and around 750 Da molecular weight cut-off. This blend membrane can be used for OSN with any other solvents regardless of their polarity. The same membrane also showed an excellent pervaporation performance with a separation factor of 14 and a flux of 1.6 kg m-2 h-1 using a 5 wt% ethanol water mixture at room temperature. The blending of PDMS with cellulose resulted in a 100% increase of the separation factor when compared with pure PDMS. This surprising performance is a consequence of the good miscibility of the blending polymers, which can be obtained through this unique pathway. Overall, this study demonstrates a simple, efficient, and scalable method that is the only possible way reported to date to combine the superiority of cellulose and PDMS as a low-cost and stable membrane for solvent separation.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049724094&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1039/c8ta02697a

DO - 10.1039/c8ta02697a

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85049724094

VL - 6

SP - 13685

EP - 13695

JO - Journal of Materials Chemistry A

JF - Journal of Materials Chemistry A

SN - 2050-7488

IS - 28

ER -