Preparation and Performance Studies on Polycarbonate and Polyethylene Glycol Blend Perforated Membranes of Acoustically Retardant Material for Interior Building Sound Proof Design by using Mixture Design Concept

Abstract

Polycarbonate (PC) based perforated membranes have several advantages over other perforated membranes due to its moderate permeate flux, high porous properties, renewable source of raw material, very good absorption ability of sound etc. The perforated membrane compositions containing different composition of PC, polyethylene glycol (PEG 600) as additive and N,N – dimethyl formamide (DMF) as dissolving solvent have been prepared through the phase inversion technique based on the mixture design concept of design of experiments. The prepared membranes have been characterized for perforation and sound retardant level through some simple technique as permeate flux, membrane hydraulic resistance and separation of proteins such as pepsin, egg albumin (EA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA). Using statistical techniques, the experimental data have been analyzed and suitable model suggested for predicting the optimal level of response as a function of the input variable. The influence of variation of the PC, DMF and PEG 600 on the perforated sound proof membrane properties has also been reported.