An experimental investigation of evaporation time and the relative humidity on a novel positively charged ultrafiltration membrane via dry–wet phase inversion

In this paper, a novel positively charged asymmetrical membrane was manufactured from brominated polyphenylene oxide (BPPO)/N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP)/H2O via in situ amination with triethanolamine (TEOA) and a dry–wet phase inversion. The casting solution was exposed to the humid surroundings before immersing into the coagulation bath. The positive charge character of the membrane surface was examined by streaming potential and the effect of the evaporation time and the relative humidity (RH) on the membrane properties and microstructure were investigated, respectively. It was interestingly found that the role of evaporation time and the relative humidity on the membrane performance and morphologies for a positively charged casting system was different from the conventional rule. This was mainly due to the competition of two influence factors, i.e., evaporation of solvent and water absorption of the casting solution. The results were conformed to SEM observation and pore size distribution. Furthermore, the process of water absorption of the casting solution was monitored by attenuated total reflectance infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy technique. Additionally, in order to compare to the dry–wet phase inversion method, the membranes were obtained by prolonging the exposure time to more than 12 h (which was similar to vapor-induced phase inversion) at different RH. Polymer nodules on the membrane surface and a symmetrical morphology were observed by SEM.