Engineering thermoplastic provides superior properties for fluid handling in applications ranging from dialysis equipment to water-treatment filters
Phoenix, Ariz., U.S. — The engineering thermoplastic polyethersulfone (PES) is increasingly the choice to produce hollow fibers for fluid transport and cast membranes for filtration applications thanks to its high mechanical, chemical, and thermal properties and a microporous structure that makes PES a very-effective filter medium. Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies offers four grades (4800P, 5200P, 5400P, and 5900P) of PES for the filtration market segment under the tradename SumikaExcel™. Each grade is supplied as a powder, which is subsequently dissolved in an organic solvent and either spun into hollow fibers or cast as membranes with very controllable pore size/diameter and distribution, excellent strength and chemical stability, and high porosity and permeability for long use-life, low fouling, and superior separation performance. Such filter media are used in applications as diverse as hollow-fiber dialyzer filter packs for low- and high-flux hemodialysis procedures, particle filtration for wastewater treatment, microfiltration for beverage clarification, ultrafiltration drinking-water decontamination, reverse osmosis for seawater desalination or drinking-water purification, and chemical separators.
