Effect of cooling baths on EVOH microporous membrane structures in thermally induced phase separation

The purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of cooling bath on the membrane preparation of crystalline polymer/diluent system via thermally induced phase separation (TIPS), when the cooling bath is compatible with the diluent. In this work, poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) (EVOH)/PEG300 system with water and methanol as the cooling baths was proposed. Results showed that when water was used as the cooling bath, the membrane presented an asymmetric structure consisting of a porous skin, macrovoids near the top and lacy structures near the bottom. In contrast, when cooled in the bath of methanol, it showed particulate morphology on the top surface and cellular pores near the bottom. The lacy and cellular structures were the typical structures resulted from liquid–liquid thermally induced phase separation, the novel macrovoids and particulate morphology were then supposed to be induced by the mutual diffusion between the diluent and the cooling bath. In the case of water, the diluent's outflow was comparative with the water's inflow into the membrane, so the penetrated water acted as a strong nonsolvent and induced macrovoids near the top. In the bath of methanol, the diluent's outflow was much faster than the methanol's inflow, which changed the solution composition from a liquid–liquid phase separation region to a solid–liquid phase separation region and resulted in particulate morphology near the top.