Type of Document	Thesis
Author	Holley, Erin Robin
Author's Email Address	erh06@fsu.edu
URN	etd-07122010-172300
Title	Synthesis and Characterization of Polystyrene Latex Composite Membranes
Degree	Master of Science
Department	Chemical Engineering, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Subramanian Ramakrishnan Committee Chair John Telotte Committee Member Ongi Englaner Committee Member Ravindran Chella Committee Member
Keywords	Ultrafiltration Membrane Characterization Composite Membrane
Date of Defense	2010-07-02
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract Composite membranes were synthesized by filtering 200 nm, 650 nm, and 900 nm polystyrene latex particles on top of porous base supports. The base supports and the fabricated membranes were then characterized in terms of their average pore size, pore size distribution, and water flux. Results indicated that the added particles narrowed the pore size distributions of the base support. They also show that the average pore size was approximately 14% of the particle diameter when an estimated six layers of particles were deposited. Excluding data for the 200 nm arrays which had high resistances, resistances through the packed beds were relatively low (approximately twice the resistance of the base supports for the thickest particle arrays). However, experimental values did not correlate well with calculated resistances using the Carman-Kozeny model at a fixed porosity. For the 650 nm and 900 nm particles, the synthesized membranes had a higher water flux than commercial membranes for a given pore size rating. To further reduce pore size, composite membranes were made by using more than one particle size. Two different methods of manufacturing membranes were investigated – a layered technique in which particles were laid down sequentially in layers and a mixture technique in which particles were mixed together and laid down on a porous support. Due to unexpected clumping of the second layer (which occurred during the fabrication of layered membranes) the mixed particle arrays were better (resulted in a narrower distribution and smaller pore size) than the layered composite membranes. The lowest pore size achieved using particle mixtures was approximately 32 nm which was the same size achieved when just using the 200 nm particles. Therefore, this work shows the ability of using latex particles to create membranes of controlled pore sizes and the ability to modify commercial supports to narrow their pore size distribution.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    Holley_E_Thesis_2010.pdf 4.60 Mb 00:21:17 00:10:56 00:09:34 00:04:47 00:00:24