Formation of a bicontinuous structure membrane of polyvinylidene fluoride in diphenyl ketone diluent via thermally induced phase separation

The polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)-diphenyl ketone (DPK) mixture was studied as a new system to prepare PVDF membranes via thermally induced phase separation (TIPS). The phenomena of liquid-liquid phase separation was found in this mixture when the temperature of mixture was decreasing and the PVDF concentration was less than 30 wt %. Using DPK as diluent, PVDF membrane with bicontinuous structure was obtained without necessity to add a nonsolvent or a stretching process further. The phase diagram of PVDF-DPK system was also constructed to help investigate the effect of PVDF concentration and coarsening temperature on morphology of resulting membrane. The experiments showed that high coarsening temperatures and low PVDF concentrations resulted in the formation of the large pore size membrane. The strength of the wet membrane was decreasing with decreasing PVDF concentration. On condition that the PVDF concentration was larger than 30 wt %, thermally induced solid-liquid separation occurred and bicontinuous structure disappeared. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.