ناصر قاسمیان

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of titanium dioxide (TiO2) on the hydrophilicity and mechanical properties of polycarbonate (PC) membrane. In this case, different amounts of TiO2; 0 to 2 wt.%, were added to the PC and various structural and characterization analyses such as field emission - scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was carried out. Mechanical strength analysis revealed that TiO2 nanoparticles have great influence on the mechanical strength of PC membrane particularly at 1.5 wt.% of nanoparticles content. The results indicated that the nanocomposite membrane with 1.5 wt.% TiO2 exhibited excellent hydrophilicity as compared to other samples. Finally, FE-SEM images showed that in the presence of 1.5 wt.% of TiO2 nanoparticles, the size of finger-like macropores increased, and the bigger macrovoids appeared.