Preparation of hydrophilic polysulfone membrane using polyacrylic acid with polyvinyl pyrrolidone

This study examined the consequences of the addition of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) of different molecular weights with constant molecular weight of polyacrylic acid (PAA) on the morphology and permeation properties of polysulfone (PSF) membranes. The asymmetric polymeric membranes were prepared by phase inversion process using PSF in N‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NMP) as a solvent. The surface structure and morphology of the prepared membranes were analyzed by field‐emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The pore number, average pore size and area of pores for all the membranes were determined by permeability method. These ultrafiltration membranes were subjected to characterizations such as measurement of pure water flux (PWF), compaction factor (CF), bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection for finding the permeability performance, whereas equilibrium water content, contact angle, porosity, hydraulic resistance, and ion exchange capacity (IEC) are measured for evaluating the hydrophilicity. Results demonstrate that the flux performance of the membranes and morphological parameters own a crucial inter‐relationship with the molecular weight of PVP. The membrane pore area and pore number were found to be increased by increasing molecular weight of PVP with constant molecular weight of PAA. A detailed comparative study was done with Chakrabarty et al. (J. Membr. Sci. 2008, 309, 209) and found better in almost all the aspects. All the resulting parameters were compared and concluded with the fact that addition of small amount of PAA in PSF/PVP/NMP casting solution can be better than addition of PVP alone. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41964.