摘要
Crosslinked membranes exhibiting in situ crosslinking and micro-cavity generation in membrane fabrication processes have been reported for pervaporation dehydration on methanol aqueous solutions. Meldrum's acid (MA) modified poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO-MA) with various MA contents have been synthesized and well characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. PPO-MA polymers could perform thermally-induced self-crosslinking reaction through cycloaddition reaction between ketene groups generated from MA thermolysis reaction. Meanwhile, MA thermolysis reaction evolves CO 2 and acetone molecules which contribute to generation of micro-cavities in the formed membranes. Consequently, compared to the pervaporative separation performance of pristine PPO membrane (permeation flux: 290 g m −2 h −1 ; separation factor: 57) on a 90 wt% methanol solution at 25 °C, the crosslinked PPO-MA membrane shows a separation factor of 809 with a slight decrease in permeation flux to about 226 g m −2 h −1 . Based on the pervaporation separation index (PSI, the product of permeation flux and separation factor), an 11-times enhancement has been achieved.