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Industrial Nanofiber Membrane

Production for Seperation
Technology

Prof.Dr. Ali DEMİR, Yaşar Emre KIYAK, Tuncay GÜMÜŞ

 Contents

1 NANOFIBER

2 ELECTROSPINNING

3 STRUCTURE OF NANOFIBER MEMBRANE

4 NANOFIBER MEMBRANES FOR SEPERATION

5 INDUSTRIAL NANOFIBER PRODUCTION

 NANOFIBER
•Nanotechnolgy deals with structures 100 nm or below involving materials and devices
•Fiber diameter less than 1 µm is defined as nanofiber

Human
Human hair
hair Nanofibers
Nanofibers

High
High surface
surface High
High Flexibility,
Flexibility,
area
area porosity
porosity rigidity
rigidity
NANOFIBER PRODUCTION METHODS

•Melt fibrillation, self assembly → laboratory scale

•Islan-in-the-sea, meltblowing → commercial, mass production, limited polymers
•Electrospinning → simple, cheap, various material,
ELECTROSPINNING PROCESS
APPLICATIONS

•Yarns produced from electrospun nanofiber much weaker

than conventional microfiber
•Nano or micro porous structure of nanofiber webs make
them alternative materials for separation.
 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE

•Asymmetric electrospun PAN nanofibrous mid-

layer support and a non-woven PET substrate was
produced.

•With different chitosan concentrations, the

thickness of the coating layer could be changed
from 1 to 3 µm. It is noted that the thickness of
the top coating layer is of crucial importance to
the performance of the filter.

K. Yoon, K. Kim, X. Wang, D. Fang, B.S. Hsiao, B. Chu, High flux ultrafiltration membranes based on electrospun nanofibrous
PAN scaffolds and chitosan coating, Polymer 47 (2006) 2434–2441.
 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE
•Increasing concentration of solution increases fiber diameter,
•Pore diameter increses with increasing fiber diameter,
•Porosity decreases with increasing fiber diameter,
•Surface porosity and volumetric porosity are similar for
nanofiber membranes,
•Surface porosity and volumetric porosity are similar for
conventional ultrafiltration and microfiltration membranes,
•Nanofiber membrane can exhibit %73 porosity
A) %4, B)%6, C)%8, D)%12
•High porosity of nanofiber membrane causes
high fouling problem
•Chitosan coating would allow water to
penetrate without losing too much flow rate,
while the smooth coating surface would
minimize the blockage problem
 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE
•%15 PVdF/DMAc-Acetone 1:1
•10 cm2 nanofiber web
•145 oC 18 hour heat treatment

FESEM micrographs of electrospun PVDF membrane (a) before and (b) after heat treatment.

Membrane Properties ENM Microfiltration Ultrafiltration

Pore size 10.6 nm-4.0 µ 0.05-10 µ 0.1 nm-0.1 µ
Trans membrane 0.6 0.1-1 1-5
Pressure (bar)

R. Gopal, S. Kaur, Ma Zuwei, Casey Chan, S. Ramakrishna, T. Matsuura, Electrospun nanofibrous filtration
membrane, J. Membr. Sci. 281 (1–2) (2006) 581–586.
 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE

Particle Membrane area (cm2) Feed flux (kg/h) Water flux end Separation
size(µm) of exp. (kg/h) factor(%)
10 3 133 133 96

5 3 200 200 91

1 3 467 - -
1 3 1300 530 98

R. Gopal, S. Kaur, Ma Zuwei, Casey Chan, S. Ramakrishna, T. Matsuura, Electrospun nanofibrous filtration membrane, J. Membr.
Sci. 281 (1–2) (2006) 581–586.
 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE

(a) PES nanofiber (b) commercial hemodialyzer

K.H. Lee, D.J. Kim, B.G. Min, S.H. Lee, Polymeric nanofiber web-based artificial renal microfluidic chip, Biomedical Microdevices
(published online on 30 January 2007)
 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE

The clearance of urea, creatinine, and vitamin B12 according to the inserted
membrane

K.H. Lee, D.J. Kim, B.G. Min, S.H. Lee, Polymeric nanofiber web-based artificial renal microfluidic chip, Biomedical Microdevices
(published online on 30 January 2007)
PA6 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE
FIBER DIAMETER DISTRIBUTION
45
40
35
SAMPLE 1
30
25 SAMPLE 2
20 SAMPLE 3

(%
15

ib
rs
eF
SAMPLE 4

)
10
5
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Fiber diameter (nm)

PORE DIAMETER DISTRIBUTION

50
45
40 SAMPLE 1
35
30 SAMPLE 2
25
(%o
p

SAMPLE 3
re

20
)

15
10 SAMPLE 4
5
0
0 1 2 3
Pore diameter (micron)
 PA6 NANOFIBER MEMBRANE

Nanofiber membrane was tested by dead-end filtration method,

PA6 nanofiber membrane exhibited over % 99 filtration efficiency for

zeolite/water solution, the particle size distribution is given in graphic.
INDUSTRIAL NANOFIBER
MEMBRANE PRODUCTION

•8 needle block, 256 needles to increase

production rate
•Steel conveyor to produce potential difference
in electrospinning area
•Fabric let off and take-up for continious
production
•Negative and pozitive high voltage power
supplies to produce efficient electric field
 INDUSTRIAL NANOFIBER
MEMBRANE PRODUCTION

•Prototype unit of electrospun nanofiber web production machine was designed

and constructed by these results and data obtained from the electrospinning
experiments conducted with the small scale set ups. Prototype unit which has
2m*2m*4m size can effectively produce 1 meter width nanofiber membrane
•The prototype unit was designed and manufactured with controls of solution flow
rate, fabric velocity, voltage and solvent exhaust. The remaining short falls in the
design and construction of the pilot machine may be stated as the electrical
insulation, voltage discharges and flow rate variations.
This project was supoorted by

MİNİSTRY OF INDUSTRY AND

COMMERCE

and collaborative research of

&

http:// www.sanayi.gov.tr
http:// www.itu.edu.tr
http://www.inovenso.com/
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