Superhydrophilic poly(p-phenylene sulfide) membrane preparation with acid/alkali solution resistance and its usage in oil/water separation

Abstract In this study, Poly(p-phenylene sulfide) (PPS) microporous membrane was prepared via Thermally Induced Phase Separation (TIPS), and the superhydrophilic membrane was modified by nitric acid. After the interfacial reaction between PPS membrane and HNO3, a large number of hydrophilic groups, such as SO , SO2 , C O, NH2 and NO2 groups, were introduced onto PPS membrane surface. When the treatment temperature was 50 °C, the characterized results indicated that the membrane became superhydrophilic with contact angle of 0° and pure-water flux of 154.95 L/m2 h. And the membrane structure was not destroyed during the modification via HNO3. Furthermore, the performance of modified membrane on oil/water separation was studied and all of the separation efficiency were greater than 95% when the modified membrane was utilized to separate four different types of oil/water emulsions. In particular, the modified membrane was utilized to separate the chlorobenzene/water emulsion with the separation efficiency of 98.98%. Both carbonic ink solution and 1 wt% chlorobenzene/water emulsion were filtered with the treated membrane with acid/base solution (pH = 1, 7 and 14) to evaluate the modified membrane corrosion resistance of acid/base, and the characterized results indicated that modified membrane possessed the excellent acid/base corrosion resistance.