Effect of thermal treating on the morphology of electrospun nanofibrous polystyrene membrane

In recent years membranes and membrane separation processes are widely used for various applications [1,2]. Progress in application of membrane processes lead to developmodified membranes with better performance i.e. higher flux and rejection, higher fouling resistance, higher chemical andthermal stability. Therefore, methods which can prepare membranes with mentioned properties are an interesting topic. Electrospinning (ESing) has been recognized as an efficientmethod for fabrication of polymeric micro- and nanofibrous membranes. Great worldwide attention to the ESing observedbecause it is simple and versatile method that creates highly porous membranes with 3D interconnected structure as well ashighly effective area in comparison with commercially membranes which prepared based on the traditional methods [3].In this work, electrospun nanofibrous polystyrene membranes were fabricated. Thermal treating was used to modify the membranes’ properties. Characterizations, before and afterthermal treating, were carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), andFTIR to observe the effect of thermal treating on the membranes’ morphology.