A highly stable PBI solvent resistant nanofiltration membrane prepared via versatile and simple crosslinking process

Abstract 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 crosslinking. 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.