PVDF hollow fiber membranes prepared from green diluent via thermally induced phase separation: Effect of PVDF molecular weight

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) specimens of different molecular weights, along with tributyl O-acetylcitrate (ATBC) as green diluent, were used to prepare hollow fiber membranes by thermally inducedphase separation (TIPS). By increasing the quenching bath temperature, the overall porosity increasedand the tensile strength of the hollow fiber membranes decreased, whereas the washing temperaturedid not affect these properties. High molecular weight PVDF enhanced the mechanical properties andreduced porosity of the resulting hollow fiber membranes. Hollow fiber membranes were prepared witha very sharp pore size distribution and used for direct contact membrane distillation to demonstrate oneof the potential applications of this membrane.The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Nano Materials Program, National Research Foundation (NRF) of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology (2012M3A7B4049745) and partial support from Solvay Specialty Polymers