Heat-treatment effect on the morphology and pervaporation performances of asymmetric PAN hollow fiber membranes

The influence of heat-treatment conditions on the morphology and pervaporation performances of aqueous isopropanol (IPA) solution through wet spinning prepared polyacrylonitrile (PAN) hollow fiber membranes were investigated. At heat-treatment temperature higher than 210 °C, dehydrogenation and cyclization reaction of the PAN molecular occurred during the heat-treatment process. The SEMs observation depicts that the morphology of heat-treated PAN hollow fiber membranes was denser with increasing the heat-treatment temperature. The permeation rate and water concentration in the permeate for a 90 wt.% aqueous isopropanol solution through the heat-treated PAN hollow fiber membranes at 120 °C for 12 h were 186 g/m2 h and 99.2 wt.%, respectively.