Development of ceramic-supported polymeric membranes for filtration of oil emulsions

Hybrid ceramic-polymeric membranes have been constructed by growing of covalently-bondedpolyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP) chains from the surface of porous inorganic supports via a graft polymerization process. The ability to manipulate the distribution of grafted polymer on the surface has been achieved through the control of the surface density of chain anchoring sites (vinyl silane molecules). The application of the modification procedure to both silica and {dollar}alpha{dollar}-alumina surfaces has been investigated. Resultant Ceramic-Supported Polymeric (CSP) membranes can now be produced with variable surface density and length of the terminally anchored polymer chains.; Hydraulic permeability measurements were conducted to demonstrate the effect of this variation in grafted chain density and length on the water permeability of the CSP membranes. Similar measurements with a range of polar and non-polar organic solvents and both unmodified and modified membranes suggested that the permeability of the modified membrane is determined by the chemistry and configuration of the terminally anchored polymer chains. This has been attributed to the fact that the swelling (degree of extension) of the polymer brush layer increases as the solvent power increases, resulting in a decrease in the pore radius and the permeability.; The separation performance of these CSP membranes have been evaluated for the cross-flow filtration of oil emulsions. For tubular silica-PVP membranes, a reduction in the TOC concentration of the permeate stream was observed with operation in the fully developed turbulent flow regime. It is hypothesized that this behavior is attributed to the ability of the grafted chains to inhibit penetration of cake layer into the pore structure from the normal component of the velocity vector.