Morphological Analysis of Membranes of PES/Commercial Clay

The separation membrane processes are still fresh, but have had a lot of attention because they present attractive, such as low energy consumption, greater operating flexibility and better quality in the final product. Obtaining membranes incorporating clay is attracting interest because it improves the membrane filtration properties. In this study, pure polymer membranes were produced from poly (ether sulfone) and clays Cloisite Na and 20A, the levels of 1, 3 and 5% from the phase inversion technique using the dimethylformamide solvent. XRD results indicated the presence of a peak at both at about 15.8° compositions indicating that the systems are possibly intercalated and/or microcomposites structures. SEM results showed that the membranes with clay showed different behavior in relation to pure PES membranes. They apparently exhibited a surface without pores with exception of membrane with 5 wt.% Na Cloisite, which showed pores on its surface.