Preparation and performance of porous membrane materials using the sol-gel method

Porous membrane materials have the universal use, so it is widely considered as one of the most promising high-tech. Different membranes have different preparation methods. In this paper, the sol-gel method was applied to prepare silica particles using ammonia as catalyst of TEOS hydrolysis, then silica particles were mixed with polyethylene, and finally silica particles were dissolved with hydrofluoric acid, leaving holes, the porous materials were obtained. The results show that: (1) In this experimental conditions, the size of silica particles are closely related to the water content of the system. (2) The size of silica particles affects the agglomeration of particles. The size of silica particles are smaller, the agglomeration is more obvious. (3) As the content of PE increases, the porosity of the samples decreases continuously; in theory, when the content of silica is low, the hole will be greater.