Self-assembled nano-structured polyelectrolyte composite membranes for pervaporation

This work is concerned with nano-structured polyelectrolyte composite membranes for solvent dehydration by pervaporation. The membranes were prepared by the electrostatic layer-by-layer deposition of polyethylenimine and poly(acrylic acid) onto a microporous polyacrylonitrile substrate membrane. Each cycle of alternating deposition of the cationic and anionic polymers formed a bilayer of polyelectrolyte, and multiple deposition cycles were used to achieve the permselectivity of the membrane. The polyacrylonitrile substrate membrane was partially hydrolyzed to improve the initial deposition of polyelectrolytes. It was proposed to use a relatively dilute concentration of the polyelectrolytes in the first few cycles of deposition, followed by depositions with more concentrated polyelectrolyte solutions (but still far below the critical overlapping concentration to ensure well extended conformation of the polyelectrolyte molecules). It was demonstrated that using this technique a good permselectivity could be achieved with less than 10 cycles of deposition, which was much less than the number of cycles used in the literature (e.g. 60–90). The membrane showed good separation performance for separation of water from isopropanol; at a feed water concentration of 8–10 wt.%, a permeate concentration of over 99 wt.% water was achieved with a permeation flux of about 0.6 kg/m2 h.