Summary: | Nanofiber Polyethersulfone (PES) membrane fabrication using the electrospinning method incorporating dry/wet phase
inversion was investigated. The electrospinning process is a straightforward and versatile method to produce one-dimensional
nanostructures, especially nanofibers. The electrospun’s outcome can be affected by the various process parameters and
solution parameters, making it an interesting study subject and an opportunity for customized nanofiber membrane. In
this work, the analysis includes dope formulation and electrospinning parameter influence to membrane morphology
dimensional structure based on Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and filtration capability. Fibrous membranes were
electrospun at 1 to 3 ml/h feeding rate and at 12 to 25kV voltage rate in a fixed 10 to 12 cm distance between the filter
membrane and the syringe needle tip. The PES dope solution with N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent electrospun
onto a wet filter base membrane (5A 90 mm Advantec Filter Paper) to refine the fabricated fibrous membrane and to induce
the dry-wet phase inversion process. The results indicate that the PES fiber dimension reduced at a lower feeding rate and
higher voltage rate. In terms of liquid separation performance, experimental results showed that pure water permeation flux
was reduced with the increased flow spinning rate of 1 to 3ml/hr but triple times higher than the increased concentration
PES formulation, even at higher voltage spinning. The electrospun performance of polyethersulfone was also explained
using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). It focused on the polymer content, tip-to-collector distance, and flow rate
parameters toward fiber diameter and contact angle. Among these factors, the effect of PES content (f-value = 65.87) was
the most significant, followed by tip-to-collector distance (f-value = 11.26) and flow rate (f-value = 2.59).
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