Dielectric Properties of Polysulfone Carbon Nanotube Composite Membranes

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the alignment of carbon nanotubes within polysulfone membranes affects their dielectric properties, revealing that alignment influences the dielectric constant, which could impact membrane performance.

Contribution

It is the first study to demonstrate the effect of CNT alignment on the dielectric properties of polysulfone membranes.

Findings

Aligned MWCNTs alter the dielectric constant of membranes.

Dielectric properties differ significantly between aligned and unaligned CNT membranes.

First demonstration of dielectric property sensitivity to CNT alignment in membranes.

Abstract

Polymeric membranes, including Polysulfone (PSf) membranes, are routinely used for water treatment. To enhance water permeation of above membranes, it is common to synthesize polymeric membranes with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) embedded in them. It is seen that water permeability of membranes having vertically aligned CNTs is higher, as compared to those where CNTs are not aligned. It is of interest to examine if the dielectric constant of a CNT based nanocomposite membrane is sensitive to alignment of CNTs or not. This paper reports dielectric properties of PSf-MWCNT membranes, both, for aligned and unaligned MWCNTs. Multi Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) based polysulfone membranes were synthesized using standard methods. MWCNTs in above membranes were aligned by casting the membrane in presence of magnetic field. The present paper, for the first time, shows that the above result is valid for membranes also.