Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SF5-O025
CHARACTERIZATION AND GENERATION OF POLYMERIC
MEMBRANES BASED ON THERMOPLASTIC POLYURETHANES
(TPU) FOR DIRECT CONTACT MEMBRANE DISTILLATION (DCMD)
Yareni Aguilar Costumbre 1 , Juliette Alexandra Lambert 2 , Vladimir Alonso Escobar Barrios 1
1 Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica A.C., División de Materiales
Avanzados, Polímeros, Mexico. 2 Centro de Innovación Aplicada en Tecnologías Competitivas
(CIATEC), Estudio de procesos de Membranas, Mexico.
The generation of microporous flat-sheet membrane based on polyurethane
thermoplastic (TPU) by solvent evaporation was studied for Direct Contact
Membrane Distillation (DCMD). For this, the polymer was dissolved with both
polymer N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and tetrahydrofuran (THF), with a 70/30
ratio. The effect of nature of the solvent on membrane properties such as
porosity, hydrophobicity, morphology, thermal properties was investigated. The
generated membranes were characterized by different techniques like
differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), contact angle, SEM, porosity in order to
establish structure-properties relationships. The results shown that there is a
clear influence in the vaporization rate on the porosity, being more porous as
the solvent evaporates more easily. Regarding the DCMD, the generated
membranes are adequate for such distillation technique allowing the water
vapor transport through them. Thus, the generated membranes are competitive
with those commercial one.
Acknowledgment:
The authors thankful acknowledges the financial support CONACYT (no. 486328)
and the special IPICYT, CIATEC, LINAN and Polymer Laboratory IPICYT.
Keywords: Polyurethane thermoplastic, Membrane, Membrane distillation direct
contact
Presenting authors email: yareni.aguilar@ipicyt.edu.mx