HYDROPHILIC CHARACTERISITICS OF COMPOSITE MEMBRANES BASED ON MODIFIED-CHITOSAN MATRICES AND CARBON NANO TUBE-MODIFIED FILLER
Herianus Manimoy (a*), Lina Eka Arizka (b), Lukman Atmaja, Ph.D (b)
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya - Indonesia
Abstract
Chitosan, a hydrocarbon-based natural polymer, normally has good thermal stability. However, its hydrophilic characteristic limits its application as a membrane. The addition of anhydrous phthalates is expected to improve other physical properties. In this study, composite membranes were fabricated using the modified chitosan matrices combined with filler of modified materials, i.e., by CNT and MMT. FTIR spectra of the matrices shows peak at 1656.91 cm-1 which show amide functional group resulted from the conversion of amine of phthalate groups at phatalic anhydride. In pristine chitosan spectrum, the peak is not available. The modified filler shows a 3450 cm-1 peak which show hydrogen bond formed among internal interactions of the modifier. The XRD diffractogram of pristine chitosan shows three highest intensity peaks at 2θ of 609.2, 609.88, and 550 while anhydrous phthalate-modified chitosan shows the peak at 2θ of 609.8. The related diffractogram for the filler shows the peak at 2θ of 215,93 and 234,83. The addition of anhydrous phthalate to chitosan together with the use of CNT-MMT clearly reduce its crystallinity leading to improvement hydrophilic characteristic of the membrane. The results of this study expected to be one of the references in research regarding the fabrication of chitosan-anhydrous phthalate-based composite membranes for DMFC applications.
Keywords: Chitosan-Phthalic anhydride; CNT-MMT; Membrane DMFC
Topic: International Symposium of Engineering, Technology, and Health Sciences