THE RHEOLOGY OF FIBER SPINNING AND THE PROPERTIES OF HOLLOW-FIBRE MEMBRANES FOR GAS SEPARATION

The effect of spinning rheology on gas-separation hollow-fibre membranes has been investigated. For polysulfone fibres, permeability decreased with increasing dope concentration. The lowest fibre selectivities occurred with the medium spinning-dope concentration, suggesting that both surface pore area and active layer thickness were high. Both permeability and selectivity increased with increasing dope extrusion rate, possibly due to enhanced orientation of the membrane skin. Permeability increased and selectivity decreased with increasing jet stretch. Polyacrylonitrile membranes, because of the low polymer permeability, proved insensitive to spinning conditions, showing no separation capability due to the dominating effect of surface pores.