Fabrication of Polyether Sulfone Blend Imprinted Membranes for Selective Adsorption of p-hydroxybenzonic from Salicylic Acid

Highly selective polyether sulfone (PES) blend imprinted membranes for template p-hydroxybenzonic (p-HB) were synthesized by phase inversion imprinting technique using polybenzimidazoles (PBI) as a functional polymer and nanosized Al₂O₃ as the additives. The SEM analysis showed that cross-sectional morphology of membranes were strongly influenced by the content of nano-sized Al₂O₃. Compared with PES₁-MIM, PES₂-MIM and PES₄-MIM, the PES₃-MIM containing 2.0 wt.% nano-sized Al₂O₃ exhibited higher membrane flux, kinetic equilibrium adsorption value, binding capacity and better selectivity for p-HB. The experimental data of adsorption kinetic were well fitted to the pseudo-secondorder kinetic model using multiple regression analysis. Static adsorption isotherm experiments exhibited that the PES₃-MIM had the maximum adsorption capacity for p-HB. Moreover, selective experiment showed that the selectivity coefficients of PES₃-MIM for p-HB relative to salicylic acid (SA) was 3.670, showing that PES₃-MIM had excellent binding affinity and selectivity for separating p-HB form p-HB-contained aqueous solution.