EFFECT OF DIFFERENT SOLVENT IN THE PREPARATION 133 Jurnal Teknologi, 49(F) Dis. 2008: 133–140 © Universiti Teknologi Malaysia EFFECT OF DIFFERENT SOLVENT IN THE PREPARATION OF POLYETHERSULFONE(PES)-AG POLYMER COMPOSITE HATIJAH BASRI 1 , AHMAD FAUZI ISMAIL 2* & MADZLAN AZIZ 3 Abstract. Organic-inorganic composite materials have attracted great attention because of their potential to combine the features of organic materials with those of inorganic materials. Particularly organic-metal composite such as polymer-silver are promising functional materials in areas ranging from electronic and optical devices to biosensing, antimicrobial agents and catalysis. In general, there are two synthetic approaches of silver-polymer nanostructures : in situ and ex situ methods. In this study silver-polyethersulfone (PES) was prepared in situ. The morphology of the samples which has undergone permeation measurement was characterized by Field Emission- Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM)/Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX). The differences in their structure arises from using different solvents N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) which was labeled A16 and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) which was labeled B16. Fingerlike structure was observed for B16 while mixed finger-like and spongy structure with voids was observed for A16. Pure water permeability measurement proved that B16 can permeate five times better than A16. However, rejection by membranes only differs by 7.3%. Hence, the performance of composite can be explained in terms of the observed surface and cross section micrographs, which in turn is correlated with the permeation measurement. Keywords: Composite; polyethersulfone; silver; finger; like structure-permeation Abstrak. Bahan komposit organik-inorganik telah menarik perhatian para penyelidik disebabkan potensi untuk menggabungkan ciri-ciri bahan inorganik dalam bahan organik. Secara khususnya, komposit organik-inorganik misalnya polimer-perak adalah bahan yang berpotensi dalam pelbagai bidang seperti alat optik dan elektronik, bio-pengesan, agen antimikrob dan pemangkinan. Secara amnya, terdapat dua cara penyediaan struktur-nano polimer-perak sintetik, iaitu kaedah in situ dan ex situ. Dalam kajian ini, polyethersulfone (PES)-perak disediakan secara in situ. Morfologi bagi sampel membran yang telah melalui ujian pemeresapan dicirikan dengan menggunakan kaedah Mikroskopi Imbasan Elektron Pemancaran Medan (FE-SEM) /Analisis Penyerakan Tenaga Sinar-X (EDX). Perbezaan struktur membran yang dihasilkan adalah berpunca daripada penggunaan pelarut yang berbeza iaitu N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) yang dilabel sebagai A16 dan N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) yang dilabel sebagai B16. Struktur seakan jejari telah dikesan bagi A16 dan campuran jejari dan struktur mampung sepan berongga dikesan bagi B16. Pengukuran 1 Centre for Science Studies, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn, Malaysia Email: hatijah@uthm.edu.my 2 Advanced Composite Technology Research Center, Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia 3 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia Email: madzlan@utm.my * Corresponding author: Email: afauzi@utm.my