Investigation on Solvent Resistant Nanofiltration Membranes Generation

Membrane filtration has been used to separate or concentrate a desired product via careful selection of the membrane pore size. Membrane filtration has been used extensively in biological areas for the separation of macromolecules. Over the past decade a significant progress in SRNF membranes has been made. Various polymeric and ceramic membranes were prepared and studied for the use in organic solvents. With regard to chemical thermal and mechanical stability the most robust are ceramic membranes. They are usually prepared from materials such as alumina (Al2O3) zirconia (ZrO2) or titanium (TiO2). There have been few investigations in the area of NF membranes applied to non-aqueous environments especially polar aprotic solvents. SRNF is still growing and has attracted many industrial processes. However SRNF is faced with many problems that include swelling compaction and approaches to realistically correlating compaction and/or swelling with their performance. Also most of the models used for describing permeation through SRNF membranes were used for describing permeation of aqueous solutions through NF membranes and exclude the effects of swelling and compaction.