Figure 3
From: Low cost, high performance ultrafiltration membranes from glass fiber-PTFE–graphene composites
Filtration properties of nanocomposite membranes as tested by filtering an ethanol-based dispersion (10 ml) of SiC nanoparticles (0.2 mg/ml) through the membrane (A = 2.23 cm2) mounted on a conventional Buchner funnel (P = 60 kPa). (A,B) Measured flow rate (A) and transmitted fraction (B) plotted as a function of fractional PTFE/Graphene mass uptake for three types of composite membranes (i.e. those in Fig. 1H–J, see legend in panel (C). N.B the transmitted fraction is the fraction of SiC nanoparticles (by mass) transmitted through the membrane. The solid line in A is a fit to Eq. (4). (C) Transmitted fraction plotted vs. flow rate for a range of composite membranes with the performance of some commercial membranes shown for comparison. N.B in the plot, high performance membranes should be located toward the bottom right. (D) The performance can be approximated by the ratio F/T, which is plotted versus membrane density. The membranes produced here perform extremely well at low density.
