Preparation of cellulose acetate dialysis membrane using d-glucose monohydrate as additive

Dialysis membrane containing cellulose acetate (CA) as polymer, formic acid (FA) as solvent and D-glucose monohydrate as additive was prepared by phase inversion method. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of D-glucose monohydrate as an additive on the performance of dialysis membrane in terms of urea and creatinine clearance. The concentration of D-glucose is varied from 2 to 10 wt%. Microwave heating which is capable of reducing dissolution time was used to dissolve the CA polymer in the formic acid solvent. Results revealed that the membrane produced from the 20 wt% cellulose acetate, 70 wt% formic acid and 10 wt% D-glucose monohydrate gives the best performance with urea and creatinine clearance of 49.77% and 19.54% respectively. When testing the same membranes with BSA solutions, it gives a BSA rejection rate as high as 96.78%, which seems to be comparable with the commercial cellulose acetate dialysis membranes. Membrane morphology was observed by using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM images illustrated that the increment of D-glucose monohydrate in casting solution tends to promote macrovoid formation