_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: Email: sunartirahman@edu.com; Journal of Scientific Research & Reports 7(5): 322-337, 2015; Article no.JSRR.2015.214 ISSN: 2320-0227 SCIENCEDOMAIN international www.sciencedomain.org Optimization of the Preparation of Hydrophobic Isotactic Polypropylene Flat Sheet Membrane by Response Surface Methodology Design Sunarti Abdul Rahman 1* and Wan Zulaisa Amira Wan Jusoh 1 1 Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Lebuhraya Tun Abdul Razak, 26300 Gambang, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration between both authors. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI: 10.9734/JSRR/2015/17277 Editor(s): (1) Francisco José Hernández Fernández, Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Cartagena, Spain. Reviewers: (1) Azhari Muhammad Syam, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Malikussaleh, Indonesia. (2) P.krishnamoorthy, Department of Chemistry, Madras University, India. (3) Suyogkumar V. Taralkar, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT Academy of Engineering, India. (4) Atef Mahmoud Mahmoud Attia, Biochemistry Department, Biophysical Laboratory, National Research Centre, Egypt. (5) Vandré Barbosa Brião, Faculty of Engineering, University of Passo Fundo, Brazil. (6) Volodymyr Chernyshenko, Protein Structure and Functions Department, Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, NAS of Ukraine, Ukraine. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sciencedomain.org/review-history.php?iid=1129&id=22&aid=9388 Received 6 th March 2015 Accepted 7 th May 2015 Published 25 th May 2015 ABSTRACT Membrane contactor (MC) is a cost effective solution that able to reduce the release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.The membrane applies in a MC system are highly hydrophobic, high surface porosity, low mass transfer resistance and high resistance to chemicals in the feed streams.In this study, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) design consists of 2-Level Factorial and Centre Composite Design, which were performed for screening and optimization respectively, on the production of isotactic Polypropylene (iPP) microporous flat sheet. The results obtained from the analysis of variance of contact angle, showed that the impacts of drying temperature and drying time are much more important than polymer concentration and immersion time in methanol. The most optimum membranes prepared in this experiment were membranes with the contact angle value of 106.22° by the interacting factors of dry temperature and dry time, which are 54.96°C and 18.64 minutes respectively.The regression equation obtained from the 2-Level Factorial and Original Research Article