The Effect of Medium Acidity on the Size of Polystyrene Particles in Suspension

With the development of industry, there are higher requirements for the quality of process water, as well as the composition of industrial wastewater. To meet the quality requirements, water is increasingly used in membrane methods or a combination of methods with membrane purification methods. Therefore, at present, the actual issue is the development of more effective permeability and retention capacity and inexpensive membranes. Dynamic membranes have a simple method of production. For the formation of such membranes, micro-, nano-particles of a stable suspension of the membrane-forming component are required. In this work, we investigated the dependence of particle size and the stability of a suspension of polystyrene on the acidity of the medium. It is established that, with an increase in the pH of the suspension to pH = 8, an increase in the -potential of the dispersed phase of polystyrene suspension is observed. The maximum values of the -potential of the dispersed phase of a suspension of polystyrene are observed at pH = 7 and pH = 8. The smallest particle size of the dispersed phase of the suspension is 60.8 nm; it is formed when the pH value is 5 units. That will reduce the pore size of the membrane in the process of membrane separation of solutions due to the swelling of polymer particles.