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PBAT-based Microfiltration Membranes Using Porogen Saturated Solutions: Architecture, Morphology, and Environmental Profile

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Abstract

There is a scientific consensus that the use of membranes for water filtration presents itself as a promising research area for removing a wide range of sedimentary and biological origin pollutants. In this context, non-biodegradable membranes have been widely used; however, they can potentially cause severe environmental problems during their life cycle, after use, at the disposal phase. Thus, biodegradable materials have arisen as new materials for membrane production. This work aimed to develop biodegradable poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) based membranes and evaluate the effect of different porogens (polysorbate 80, glucose, sodium chloride, and sodium acetate) on the pore size formation and distribution. The combination evaporation-induced phase separation/non-solvent phase separation (EIPS/NIPS) processes were used to obtain the membranes with porous network structure. Membranes were evaluated by visual aspect, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and mechanical essays. The porogen selection also relied on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) within a "cradle-to-gate" approach and their contributions to the global PBAT-based membranes’ environmental impact. Statistical analyses were conducted to evaluate the effects of concentration and type of porogen agent employed, indicating the membrane’s potential to retain Escherichia coli (E. coli), chosen as the model microorganism. Sodium chloride and sodium acetate proved to be the most suitable porogens for the intended application, with sodium chloride presenting the best environmental performance. We highlight the potential to extend these PBAT-based membranes to other bacteria, some protozoa, virus species, and suspended particles’ retention.

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Adapted from Purkait et al. [20]

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Data Availability

The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time as the data also forms part of an ongoing study.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), REVALORES Strategic Unit, and Multiuser Central Facilities (CEM—UFABC) for scientific, methodological, and technical support, to BASF S.A. for supplying the polymer used in the development (PBAT), and to GreenDelta for providing open access to the software openLCA and ecoinvent database.

Funding

Financial support was provided by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (305819/2017-8), Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) (88882.451553/2019-01), and the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (FAPESP) (n° 2018/11277-7 and n° 2019/16301-6), to whom the authors thank.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmentally Friendly Polymers Laboratory, Engineering, Modelling and Applied Social Sciences Center (CECS), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Av. dos Estados 5001, Bairro Santa Terezinha, Santo André, São Paulo, 09210-180, Brazil

    Sueli Aparecida de Oliveira, Paulo Henrique Camani, Rennan Felix da Silva Barbosa, Daniel Belchior Rocha & Derval dos Santos Rosa

  2. Department of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Sushanta K. Mitra

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  1. Sueli Aparecida de Oliveira
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  2. Paulo Henrique Camani
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  4. Daniel Belchior Rocha
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  6. Derval dos Santos Rosa
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Contributions

SAO—Conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft, visualization. PHC—Validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft, visualization. RFSB—formal analysis, investigation, data curation, visualization, validation, writing—review & editing. DBR—data curation, software; supervision; validation; writing—review & editing. SKM—conceptualization, writing—review & editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. DSR—conceptualization, investigation, resources, writing—review & editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Derval dos Santos Rosa.

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de Oliveira, S.A., Camani, P.H., da Silva Barbosa, R.F. et al. PBAT-based Microfiltration Membranes Using Porogen Saturated Solutions: Architecture, Morphology, and Environmental Profile. J Polym Environ 30, 270–294 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-021-02189-0

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