Publications Repository - Gdańsk University of Technology

Polyolefins might become inexpensive alternatives to the existing membranes based on polyethersulfone. Here we disclose the production of retortable, well-defined PP-based nanoporous membranes derived from amphiphilic graft copolymer precursors. The graft copolymers, containing a polypropylene backbone and polyester grafts, were obtained by grafting lactones, specifically δ-valerolactone and ε-caprolactone, from well-defined randomly functionalized poly(propylene-co-10-undecen-1-ol) as a macroinitiator. Depending on the composition, the graft copolymers self-assemble into droplet, cylindrical, lamellar or interconnected two-phase morphologies. Functional mesoporous iPP-based membranes were fabricated by the selective degradation of the polyester blocks of the copolymers. Their structure and morphology were studied using AFM, SEM and SAXS and solid state NMR, while the mesoporosity was assessed by nitrogen sorption experiments. The pore size of the membranes is strongly influenced not only by the volume fraction of the copolymer blocks but unexpectedly also by the topology (i.e. number of grafts) of the graft copolymer, as was confirmed by computational modeling studies using the Dynamic Density Functional Theory (DDFT) engine within the Culgi software. This work provides a conclusive answer on how the morphology of iPP-based graft copolymers is tuned by the copolymer composition and the amount and length of the grafted polyester blocks. Filtration tests and flux determination demonstrated that such structurally-well defined mesoporous products can be successfully applied for ultrafiltration processes while the chemical resistance- and sterilization tests revealed their robust performance and suitability for water purification applications.

Authors

• Lidia Jasinska-Walc,
• Rob Duchateau,
• Thomas Defize,
• Miloud Bouyahyi,
• Artur Rozanski,
• Lanti Yang,
• Bhaskar Patham,
• Teun Sweere,
• Sebastian Hochstädt,
• Michael Ryan Hansen,
• Katrien Bernaerts