Preparation and Characterization of Biodegradable Cellulose Acetate-Fibroin for Dialysis Application

Membrane separation technology is an efficient and high-performance technique. It is a thin flat sheet and acts like a delicate barrier for the selective transport of substances under the influence of pressure. Low cost and various applications in industry as well as in medical make it more important. The basic property of a dialysis membrane is the ability to remove toxic materials from blood in minimum time, and maximum protein rejection, and must have the ability to moderate the water flux. Protein deposition or adsorption on the surface of the membrane results in low flux and change of selectivity of membrane for low toxic removal. In this work we prepared cellulose acetate membrane through the phase inversion method. The effects of additives are characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FT-IR), and Contact Angle. The membrane performance is also studied in pure water flux, water uptakes, porosity, BSA rejection, and Urea clearance test. This membrane is modified by adding various types of organic and inorganic additives which will perform specific functions. M-3 membrane showed excellent results its hydrophilicity is 133.33 %, leaching point is 2.08, pure water permeation flux 97.19 L/m(2)h, porosity is 13.97 nm, BSA rejection value is 91 % and Urea clearance is 92 %. These results show that M-3 is excellent for dialysis operations.