Separation and Purification Technology, Vol.224, 15-22, 2019
A highly stable PBI solvent resistant nanofiltration membrane prepared via versatile and simple crosslinking process
A polybenzimidazole (PBI) solvent resistant nanofiltration (SRNF) membrane with super high stability is designed and fabricated by a simple and effective intermolecular cross-linking reaction. There is a dramatic improvement in the solvent stability of the PBI membranes after crosslinking. The membrane keeps stable in even strong apolar solvent like N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF), N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) after cross-linking. The morphology together with performance can be easily tuned by the polymer concentration. The results indicate that with increasing polymer concentration in cast solution, an increased rejection and a decreased flux are realized. The prepared cross-linked membranes show a rejection of 99% on Rose Bengal (RB) in Ethanol, isopropanol (IPA) and DMF, exhibiting very good prospects in SRNF application. This paper provides a simple and versatile way to create PBI SRNF membranes.